Images
Visit the Arctic Tern image gallery on EOL
Video
Watch the Arctic Tern Google Earth Tour!
Facts
Take a break:
Sterna paradisaea breaks its long journey over open ocean by resting at sea on kelp, logs, or flotsam.
Beaks:
Arctic terns don’t only use their beaks to defend their nest sites against marauding biologists. The beak is well adapted to the birds’ oceangoing food strategy. Hovering over the ocean surface, these aerialists dive to catch small fish, eels, and crustaceans.
Tracking birds:
Miniature geolocators are giving biologists insights into the migratory behavior of other bird species, including the Northern Wheatear, which breeds in Europe and Asia and winters in Africa, and the Gray Catbird, a common North American species that travels south to Costa Rica.You can see close-up images of geolocators and more detail about how they work at the website of the Rouge River Bird Observatory in Michigan.
Who are the other long-distance migrants of the animal world?
Gray whales and northern elephant seals undertake journeys of 18,000 to 20,000 kilometers each year.
Monarch butterflies hold the record for insect migration, flying 4,750 kilometers each autumn to a wintering ground in Mexico.
Participate
Seabirds around the world are threatened by habitat loss, invasive species such as rats and feral cats, and plastic pollution of the ocean and nesting areas.
Find out how to help seabirds near you—or further away—through this roundup of efforts to help seabirds around the world.
