Roseate Tern (Sterna dougallii) is a resident and summer visitor in India.   Size: 33-38 cm

Description: Adults in summer: Pearly gray mantle across back and wings; crown black; underparts white, tinted with a delicate suffusion of pink; tail entirely white, more deeply forked and longer than in Common Tern; bill black, often more or less reddish base; feet red. Adults in winter: Similar but forehead is streaked with white or mottled with black; underparts entirely white. Juveniles: Distinctly black legs and scaly backs.

Breeding: Nest is a depression in the ground sometimes lined sparsely with dry grass or other vegetable matter; in colonies, usually mixed with Common and Arctic Terns. Eggs: 2 normally, not readily distinguished from those of Common and Arctic Terns.

Range: Breeds mainly on warm-water coasts in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans. In North America breeds along the Atlantic seaboard from Nova Scotia to the Caribbean. Winters from the West Indies to Brazil.

Remarks: It can be distinguished in flight from the Common and Arctic Terns by its longer and more deeply forked tail, its more slender appearance, its black or nearly black bill and its grating call.