The migratory pathways of Greater Crested Terns Thalasseus bergii in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway are poorly known. We tracked three birds by deploying GPS/GSM transmitters in September 2018, one for 23 months, one for 16 months, and one for 1.5 months. These tracks included complete fall migration routes for all three individuals and partial spring migration routes for two individuals between a breeding area in the Xisha Archipelago (South China Sea) and two wintering areas, one in the western Philippine Archipelago and the other in the western Celebes Sea. We observed that the two fully tracked terns had large seasonal home ranges and strong fidelity to wintering grounds and stopover sites during spring migration.
Yu et al. (Sat,) studied this question.