Hi there. I have been birding most of my life and am currently a grad student working on a bird migration study. "A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song."
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The Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea)
A small, slender white bird, the Arctic Tern is well known for its long yearly migration. Its travel from its Arctic breeding grounds to its wintering grounds off of Antarctica may cover perhaps 40,000 km (25,000 mi), and is the farthest yearly journey of any bird… (read more: Cornell Lab of Ornithology)
(photo: Toivo Toivanen & Tiina Toppila)
Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea) Family: Sternidae
The Arctic Tern is famous for its migration; it flies from its Arctic breeding grounds to the Antarctic and back again each year. This 19,000 km (12,000 mi) journey each way (measured point to point) ensures that this bird sees two summers per year and more daylight than any other creature on the planet.
The average Arctic Tern lives about twenty years, and will travel about 2.4 million km (1.5 million mi) in its lifetime. Arctic Terns usually migrate far offshore and consequently, they are rarely seen from land outside the breeding season.
