Portal:Birds/Selected species/2007-18

The arctic tern is a seabird of the tern family Sternidae. It has a circumpolar distribution, breeding colonially in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and North America. 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 mainly grey and white plumage, a red beak and feet, and a deeply forked tail. The arctic tern is K-selected, caring for and aggressively defending a small number of young. 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 reduced this bird's numbers in the southern reaches of its range.