Lesser Crested Terns Sterna bengalensis arabica from breeding populations in the Middle East migrate south along the eastern coast of Africa. Migrants to southern Africa are largely confined to the northeast of the region from Mozambique (mostly Dec-Apr) to Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa (mostly Jan-Mar; Ryan 1997; Parker 1999). Three records from the Eastern Cape are from February, March and May, respectively. Lesser Crested Terns have been recorded west of Cape Agulhas on five occasions (Table 1). Four of these records were in March and in addition to these records, Fraser (1993) mentioned an unconfirmed March record from the early 1980s at Buffelsbaai (34°19’S 18°27’E) on the eastern shoreline of the Cape Peninsula. Because the records from the Atlantic Ocean coastline of South Africa are mostly from March, it is possible that these consist of birds that continued to move west along the coast after the bulk of the migration has ceased.