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Arctic tern travels a distance equal to three times to and fro journey to moon in its life time

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Posted on: February 7, 2011
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Arctic Tern travels 71 to 81,000 kilometers for its winter home | Arctic tern travels a distance equal to three times to and fro journey to moon in its life time

Arctic TernMigrating from one place to another place is very usual activity in any bird’s life. A bird named, Arctic tern starts its journey in winter season, and travels too long distances across the continents in its migration. If world championship competition is held among birds, this bird wins title at any cast.

In general, birds migrate for food or to give birth or for existence. Arctic tern is a small bird which migrates all the way from Arctic to Antarctica, to have temporary winter home. This bird travels almost distance ranging from 70,000 to 81,000 kilometers in back and forth journey. This means, in the entire life cycle of Arctic tern it travels a distance which is equal to thrice the to and fro distance to moon. This surprising fact was revealed by scientists of Greenland institute of Resources based on the observations made from experiments conducted. It is already known that this bird is a long traveler. But it is known now only after conducting experiment that it is such a very long distance traveler. They have tied electronic tags to the necks of some Arctic tern birds and through those tags they have measured the distance traveled by birds. On their way, they take rest at Newfound Land for 25 days. Then they start from that place and reach the final destination. Till now Commuter king bird was considered as greatest migratory bird in the world which travels all the way from New Zealand to Arctic Ocean which is about 64,000 kilometers. Now based on the results of experiments conducted, its position was replaced by Arctic tern.

Special features of Arctic tern

These Arctic tern birds are fond of taking rest on ice pieces. They have capacity to catch a fish in the water by diving into the water with greater speed when flying in the air. Its beak is orange in color. At the time of giving birth, color of beak changes to red.

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