The Collaborative International Dictionary
Sooty \Soot"y\, a. [Compar. Sootier; superl. Sootiest.] [AS. s?tig. See Soot.]
Of or pertaining to soot; producing soot; soiled by soot. ``Fire of sooty coal.''
--Milton.-
Having a dark brown or black color like soot; fuliginous; dusky; dark. ``The grisly legions that troop under the sooty flag of Acheron.''
--Milton.Sooty albatross (Zo["o]l.), an albatross ( Ph[oe]betria fuliginosa) found chiefly in the Pacific Ocean; -- called also nellie.
Sooty tern (Zo["o]l.), a tern ( Sterna fuliginosa) found chiefly in tropical seas.
Wikipedia
The sooty tern (Onychoprion fuscatus) (formerly Sterna fuscata), is a seabird of the tern family, (Sternidae). The genus name is from Ancient Greek onux, "claw", and "prion", nail. The specific fuscatus is Latin for "dark".
It is a bird of the tropical oceans, breeding on islands throughout the equatorial zone. Colloquially, it is known as the wideawake tern or just wideawake. This refers to the incessant calls produced by a colony of these birds, as does the Hawaiian name ʻewa ʻewa which roughly means " cacophony". In most of Polynesia its name is manutara or similar however – literally "tern-bird", though it might be better rendered in English as "the tern" or "common tern". This refers to the fact that wherever Polynesian seafarers went on their long voyages, they usually would find these birds in astounding numbers. It is also known as kaveka in the Marquesas Islands, where dishes using its eggs are a delicacy.
Usage examples of "sooty tern".
One week she collected petitions to build a refuge for sooty terns, as though Miss Ravenel, going on thirty and a Key West expert for all of six months, would know a sooty tern to say hello to if one nested smack between her big boobs.
We saw no birds, apart from two very distant boobies and a common sooty tern.