Arctic tern

“ This fact is hardly conceivable when we consider the proportions of the bird, which are much the same as those of a swallow, but the same remarkable fact appears to hold good for the Arctic tern, which breeds in the Arctic Regions, and which was discovered by the Scotia naturalists to be spending its days, during the northern winter, in the seas off Coats Land! ”

“ The Arctic tern has a northern breeding range extending perhaps as far north as that of any bird, and it has been taken far to the south of South America in the Antarctic regions; if the thesis that the further north the bird goes in summer the further south it travels in winter is correct: as it can be proved to be with some species, some of these terns must annually travel about 22,000 miles (21) . Between these extremes are an endless variety of distances travelled and methods of migration, with striking differences in the performances of individuals of the same species. ”

“ These birds seemed to be the only terns nesting on this large lake. As food was plentiful, available nesting sites may have governed the size of the tern population.
Six pairs of Arctic terns, constituting less than one per cent of the avian population in the area, were nesting on small islands of the larger lakes at Topagaruk in the period July 5-10, 1951. On July 8, one nest held both eggs and young; other nests held either eggs or young. These birds and the Sabine's gulls showed no hostility to one another. On July 9, three miles north of camp 13 terns were among sedges in standing water. ”

“ Howard Saunders and myself recognise one when we visited the rocks to the north of Herm. It may, however, have occurred more frequently than is supposed, and been mistaken for the Common Tern, so it may be as well to point out the chief distinctions: these are the short tarsus of the Arctic Tern, which only measures 0.55 of an inch, whilst that of the Common Tern measures 0.7 of an inch; and the dark grey next to the shaft on the inner web of the primary quills of the Arctic Tern, which is much narrower than in those of the Common Tern. ”

“ On the other hand, the younger the bird is, the farther south it removes during winter, both because it thus enjoys a milder climate, and requires less exertion in procuring its food; whereas the older individuals not only have a stronger constitution, but are more expert in discovering and securing their prey, so that it is not necessary for them to extend their journey so far. 368
The Arctic Tern is found with us on the eastern coasts of the United States only, where it appears, from the shores of New Jersey northwards, in autumn, and whence it departs in early spring. ”

“ They very seldom fish for themselves; if they see a Common or Arctic Tern with a fish in their bills, they pounce upon it just the same as a Hawk will upon a small bird, and take the fish clean out of their bills; they are very quick. I have even seen them take a fish out of a young Tern's bill that has been in the nest. I can tell a Roseate Tern amongst a thousand Common Terns. When they are flying they seem to be longer in the body and longer in the wings than any other Tern, and they have a very hoarse cry, quite different to any other Tern's. ”

“ It is doubtless owing to their similarity that the two species associate freely together at all times, and are often to be found breeding side by side. But while the arctic tern is most common in the north, from the Shetlands, Orkneys, and Hebrides, to the coast of Northumberland on the one side of the country, and of Lancashire on the other, the common tern is common only on the coasts south of these two points. The nest is a slight depression, sometimes with a little dry grass for lining, placed on the shingle of the beach ”

“ Through persecution it has been exterminated in all its southern haunts, and is become much scarcer in those to which it still resorts. It was, however, never so abundant as its smaller congeners, the so-called Common and the Arctic Tern,—two species that are so nearly alike as to be beyond discrimination on the wing by an ordinary observer, and even in the hand require a somewhat close examination. ”

“ Three out of the five British species return each spring to these famous islands to breed. The Roseate Tern, rarest of all the indigenous species, used formerly to breed here, but it eventually became extinct, although from time to time an odd pair or so are observed in their old-time haunts, so that the bird may re-establish itself in them, more especially as the sea-birds are now so strictly preserved there. The three regular breeding species are the Sandwich Tern, the Common Tern, and the Arctic Tern. All are summer migrants only to the British Islands. ”

“ I have found almost invariably that the Common Tern habitually lays its eggs farther from the water than the Arctic Tern, and always prefers to conceal them amongst vegetation of some kind. Islands are always preferred to the mainland, 52 doubtless because of their greater safety. We cannot class this bird as an elaborate nest builder, a mere hollow, scantily lined with a little withered grass or weeds, being the only provision. The two or three eggs vary from buff to grayish-brown in ground colour, blotched and spotted with several shades of rich brown and gray. ”

“ In spring and fall many of our birds make long journeys under their own power, some of the most publicized being the migration of the Arctic tern, a bird that may spend the northern summer north of the Arctic Circle and, before returning there next season, may have visited south of the Antarctic Circle. The golden plover that makes a nonstop flight to Hawaii is another famous traveler, and many of our smaller songbirds are no mean travelers either. ”

“ The Arctic Tern has more hours of daylight and sunlight than any other animal on the globe. At the most northern nesting site the midnight sun has already appeared before the birds' arrival, and it never sets during their entire stay at the breeding grounds. During two months of their sojourn in the Antarctic the birds do not see a sunset, and for the rest of the time the sun dips only a little way below the horizon and broad daylight is continuous. ”

“ In the rocky islands, which they frequent from May to September, they form colonies and lay their eggs, generally apart from the allied species. The eggs closely resemble those of the Common Tern, but are somewhat smaller. In its habits and general appearance the Arctic Tern comes so close to the last-named species, that the birds, even when flying together, can only be distinguished by the most practised eye. ”

“ The arctic tern goes even farther, it nests near the North Pole, and then makes its way down to near the South Pole, a journey of 11,000 miles.
Perhaps you wonder how we know that the birds travel these long distances. Well, a good many naturalists and stalkers catch birds when young or tired and mark them by putting a small ring round their leg with a number on it. ”

“ We hauled our heavy boat up high and dry with great toil, assembled in our larger tent the baggage we were going to leave behind, arranged the loads for our two sledges, and, in repeated journeys, laboriously dragged and carried them over bog and stones to the foot of the steep moraine, greatly disturbing the minds of a number of terns, who had their nests on the stony ground near the channels of the river. They swooped almost on to our heads, and hovered, screaming frightfully, not more than a yard out of reach. No bird that flies has a more frail or graceful appearance than a tern. ”

“ Bands of Pacific kittiwakes pass up and down the surf on the lookout for herrings, and an occasional glaucus, or rather the Port Barrow gull, comes sailing along. A pair of Arctic terns feeding their full-grown young, afford almost the only bird notes of any kind. The young have a pleading, and yet harshly strong, succession of calls, and hover along the beach ever ready for the fish caught in the surf by the parent birds. The precision with which the terns can drop on a tiny fish or crustacean in the boiling surf is remarkable. ”

“ Our schooner now sailed onward, and carried us to the dreary shores of Labrador. There, after some search, we met with a great flock of Arctic Terns breeding on a small island slightly elevated above the sea. Myriads of these birds were there sitting on their eggs. The individuals were older than those which we had seen on the Magdeleine Islands; for the more advanced in life the individuals of any species are, the more anxious are they to reproduce, the sooner do they proceed to their summer residence, and the more extensive is the range of their migration northward. ”

“ An adult male shot here (Sept. 6) weighed 213 grams. Between Birnirk and Point Barrow (Sept. 11, 1952) we counted 17 Sabine's gulls feeding and resting along the shore of Elson Lagoon.
Sterna paradisaea Pontoppidan: Arctic tern.—Specimens, 11: 71⁄2 mi. S and 7 mi. W Point Barrow, 156°49'15", 71°16'52", sea level, 2, Nos. 31315 and 31318, ad. male, Sept. 6, 1952; NE Teshekpuk Lake, 153°05'40", 70°39'40", 8 ft., 3, Nos. 30750-30752 including 2 ad. males and 1 ad. female, Aug. 1, 1951; Topagaruk River, 155°48', 70°34', 10 ft., 3, Nos. ”

“ Distribution and migration of arctic terns. The route indicated for this bird is unique, because no other species is known to breed abundantly in North America and to cross the Atlantic Ocean to and from the Old World. The extreme summer and winter homes are 11,000 miles apart. ”

“ Heligoland, Oct. 30th and 31st, great many with Tringa and Scolopax, Limosa and Vanellus; and night of 31st, great rush.
Sterninæ, Terns.—Spurn, May 4th, all day to north. At the Farne Islands the Arctic Terns, Sterna macrura, returned to their nesting quarters on May 20th, and left again on Aug. 3rd, only a few being seen after that date. Yarmouth, Aug. 7th to 10th, Black, Common, and Arctic Terns along shore, and through the month to 31st; in shore only when wind is westerly, in flocks of ten to fifty, nine-tenths being young ”

“ Killer whales and seal-creatures tangle Ken Torrance in an amazing adventure under the ice-roofed arctic sea.
Sleepily the lookout stared at the scope-screen before him, wishing for something that would break the monotony of the scene it pictured: the schools of ghostly fish fleeting by, the occasional shafts of pale sunlight filtering down through breaks in the ice-floes above, the long snaky ropes of underwater growth. ”

“ Puffins are beginning now to fly hither and thither over the sea, and terns are fishing about a low-lying eastern isle. They are the common kind, but some clouds above the island are becoming flame-touched, making them roseate terns. An Arctic skua goes by too, and a black guillemot flies with a fish to feed its young. Still from the recesses of the cavern come those deep, hoarse, bellowing sounds, but they must be uttered by shags upon their nests, and that do not mean to come forth. ”

“ An air insect would be, in this dreary waste of cold, an impossibility greater than the diamond in the snow-drift. Save a seal and a fox, nothing sharing our principle of vitality has greeted us for months. The teeming myriads of life which characterized the Arctic summer have gone. The anatidæ are clamoring in the great bays and water-courses of the middle south. The gulls have sought the regions of open water. ”

“ Being powerful flyers, it is not surprising to find that several of the Australian Terns are really Old-World, and even New-World, forms too. Thus the Whiskered (Marsh) Tern is also British. The Caspian, Gull-billed, and Bridled (Brown-winged) Terns are British and American, while the Sooty Tern is found in all tropical and sub-tropical seas. It is one of the famous birds of the world, for it is the "egg bird" of sailors. It retires in large companies to low scrubby islands to breed. Here it lays a single egg on the bare ground. Sailors, tired of ship's fare, often visit these "rookeries." ”

“ In fact he entertained no doubt of reaching the pole itself.
In the first place, not a single iceberg is to be seen on this fantastic sea. Innumerable flocks of birds skim its surface, among them is a pelican which is shot. On a floating piece of ice is a bear of the Arctic species and of gigantic size. At last land is signalled. It is an island of a league in circumference, to which the name of Bennet Islet was given, in honour of the captain’s partner in the ownership of the Jane. ”

“ The crust of the snow that lay deep over the frozen muskeg and tundra was ideal for sled-travel and, of course, rendered unnecessary the use of snowshoes. All day long the steel-blue, cold fog hung in the north, obliterating the line of the flat horizon. The bitter wind that whipped and tore out of the Arctic died down at nightfall and, for the first time in their lives, the two felt the awful depression of the real Arctic silence. Mountain men, these, used to the mighty uproar of frost-tortured nature. ”

“ It will readily be understood that all manual labour had now become impossible. The days were extremely short, the sun was only above the horizon for a few hours and the actual winter, implying entire confinement within doors, was about to commence. The last Arctic birds forsook the gloomy shores of the Polar Sea, only a few pairs of those speckled quails remained which the Indians appropriately call " winter birds," because they wait in the Arctic regions until the commencement of the Polar night, but they too were soon to take their departure. ”