Arctic Tern with a Love offering looking for a mate
The Arctic Tern, nicknamed ‘sea-swallow’ after its long tail streamers and buoyant flight, is the world’s greatest long-distance traveller, migrating further than any other animal. During our summer months, they breed in Ireland and other areas of the Northern Hemisphere and then fly all the way to the Southern Ocean, off Antarctica, where they wait out the northern winter. This means that they see more daylight each year than any other creature on the planet.
Throughout the course of their lives Arctic Terns can travel more than 3 million kilometres; an especially impressive achievement for a bird that weighs just 100 grams. To put the overall distance which these birds travel into context, they migrate the equivalent of almost 4 round trips to the moon over the course of their lives (25 – 30 years).
Arctic Tern with a Love offering looking for a mate
The Arctic Tern, nicknamed ‘sea-swallow’ after its long tail streamers and buoyant flight, is the world’s greatest long-distance traveller, migrating further than any other animal. During our summer months, they breed in Ireland and other areas of the Northern Hemisphere and then fly all the way to the Southern Ocean, off Antarctica, where they wait out the northern winter. This means that they see more daylight each year than any other creature on the planet.
Throughout the course of their lives Arctic Terns can travel more than 3 million kilometres; an especially impressive achievement for a bird that weighs just 100 grams. To put the overall distance which these birds travel into context, they migrate the equivalent of almost 4 round trips to the moon over the course of their lives (25 – 30 years).