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Articles

Vol. 23 No. 3 (1992)

FIRST BREEDING RECORDS OF THE CASPIAN TERN IN BAJA CALIFORNIA, (NORTE), MEXICO

Submitted
September 16, 2025
Published
July 1, 1992

Abstract

The Caspian Tern (Sterna caspia) is a nearly cosmopolitan species, except for South America, with a highly discontinuous breeding range (Voous 1960). On the Pacific coast of North America breeding colonies are widely scattered from Sinaloa, Mexico, to Washington, U.S.A. (AOU 1983). In the peninsula of Baja California, the only breeding colonies of Caspian Terns known so far are at Scammon’s Lagoon (Bancroft 1927, Grinnell 1928, Wilbur 1987, Everett and Anderson 1991, M. Evans pers. comm.), where they nest together with Royal Terns (Bancroft 1927), and at Laguna San Ignacio (Danemann 1991, Danemann and Guzmán 1992). Both of these breeding colonies are located south of latitude 28°N, in the state of Baja California Sur. In this note, we report an additional small breeding colony at Laguna Figueroa (30°40'N), the first for the state of Baja California. We have described this closed coastal lagoon and its breeding birds previously (Palacios and Alfaro 1991).

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