 The greater crested tern occurs in tropical and warm temperate coastal parts of the Old World from South Africa around the Indian Ocean to the Pacific and Australia . The subspecies T. b. bergii and T. b. enigma breed in Southern Africa from Namibia to Tanzania , and possibly on islands around Madagascar . There is then a break in the breeding distribution of this species until Somalia and the Red Sea , and another discontinuity further east in southern India . 
