The brown noddy is colonial, usually nesting on elevated situations on cliffs or in short trees or shrubs.

In India, the brown noddy is protected in the PM Sayeed Marine Birds Conservation Reserve.

[2] The first formal description of the brown noddy was by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Sterna stolida.

Courtship feeding and flights accompany this, in addition to the transfer of a small, freshly caught fish from the male to the female.

[9] The brown noddy forages by swooping over the water and dipping down to catch small squid, other molluscs, aquatic insects and fish (such as sardines, anchovies, etc.).