Play behavior has been documented in a variety of bird species, especially among the families Corvidae and Psittacidae (Ficken 1977, Ortega and Beckoff 1987, Diamond and Bond 2003, Burghardt 2005, Emery and Clayton 2015, Kaplan 2020). Play behaviors are often classified into three categories: locomotor play, object play, and social play. Object play, the manipulation of an object for no apparent survival function (e.g., foraging or reproduction), has been reported in at least nine species of terns (Sterninae): the Sooty (Onychoprion fuscatus; Feare 1975), Gull-billed (Gelochelidon nilotica; Sabne et al. 1997, Molina et al. 2020), Caspian (Hydroprogne caspia; King 1981, Cuthbert and Wires 2020), Inca (Larosterna inca; Ashmole and Tover 1968), Roseate (Sterna dougallii; Shealer and Kress 1994), Common (S. hirundo; Arnold et al. 2020), Arctic (S. paradisaea; Hatch et al. 2020), River (S. aurantia; Kasambe 2011), and Sandwich (Thalasseus sandvicensis; Hollom 1955, Shealer et al. 2020). In this note we report the first documented instance of object play in the Royal Tern (Thalasseus maximus).