vertical portrait photo of arctic tern Sterna paradisaea in flight hovering
arctic terns hovering just above on Islands in sea with a bright stormy sky in the background. The arctic terns nest on the ground. When people walk close to the nests the terns take flight and attack people by pecking their heads. Visitors to the Islands are advised to wear hats as a means of protection from the angry and aggressive terns. The Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea) is a seabird of the tern family Sternidae. This bird has a circumpolar distribution, breeding colonially in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and North America (as far south as Brittany and Massachusetts). The species is strongly migratory, seeing two summers each year as it migrates from its northern breeding grounds to the oceans around Antarctica and back each year. This is the longest regular migration by any known animal. Arctic Terns are medium-sized birds, with a length of 33-39 centimetres (13-15 in) and a wingspan of 76-85 cm (26-30 in). They are mainly grey and white plumaged, with a red beak (as long as the head, straight, with pronounced gonys) and feet, white forehead, a black-nape and crown (streaked white) , and white cheeks. The gray mantle is 305 mm, and the scapulars are fringed brown, some tipped white. The upper wing is gray with a white leading edge, and the collar is completely white, as is the rump. The deeply forked tail is whitish, with grey outer webs. The hindcrown to the ear-coverts is back. The Arctic Tern is K-selected, caring for and aggressively defending a small number of young. Parents feed them fish for a considerable time, and help them fly south to winter. Arctic Terns are long-lived birds, with many reaching twenty years of age. They eat mainly fish and small marine invertebrates. The species is abundant, with an estimated one million individuals. While the trend in the number of individuals in the species as a whole is not known, exploitation in the past has
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Photo credit: © Michael Sayles / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: antarctica, arctic, atlantic, bird, britain, cliff, cliffs, cloudy, colony, eaurope, england, farne, flight, great, hovering, island, islands, migratory, nesting, north, ocean, paradisaea, peck, pecking, rocks, sea, seabird, sky, sterna, sternidae, tern, terns, uk
