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Tag: Arctic tern

  • From Pole to Pole with the Arctic Tern

    Bird marked with tracker

    Carsten Egevang, a researcher at the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, has compiled a video which shows the travelling of the Arctic Tern.

    The video talks about the migratory odyssey of the Arctic tern. These terns fly from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back every year.

    During its lifetime, the tiny bird flies the equivalent of three round trips between the Earth and the Moon.

    The birds were marked and then visited a year later to compile the information. It took some time to spot the birds again!

    This amazing story has been put together in this video:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bte7MCSBZvo

  • The Arctic Tern Migration Project

    The Arctic Tern Migration Project

    Arctic Tern

    Recently, a new international study on The Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea) was released revealing an impressive migratory pattern of the small seabird.

    An international research group with researchers from Greenland, Denmark, the US, UK and Iceland successfully mapped the impressive migratory pattern of 71,000 km from Greenland to the Weddell sea on the shores of Antarctica and back. What is interesting is that the Arctic tern flyes two different patters depending whether it is going north or south and spends almost a month on an island in the North-Atlantic before heading south. In addition, the birds separate on the coast of northwest Africa on their way south, half of the birds continuing down the coast of Africa the other half crossing through the Atlantic Ocean flying down south along the east coast of South America.

    The migration of the Arctic tern is the longest animal migration known today, which is very impressive considering that the bird is just over 100 grams.

    For more information, please visit the Arctic tern Migration Project homepage

    (image: Carsten Egevang)