Birdwatching - 3073 🐦

🦉 The common tern (Sterna hirundo)

• Sterna stearn, starn (Old English) tern
• hirundo (Latin) swallow

If seagulls are the street hooligans of the bird world, then common terns are their aristocratic cousins. Slender, with a jet-black cap and a dagger-like red beak.
These birds are patient hunters, unlike those thieving seagulls. Hovering in place, fluttering their wings, they look for prey, and then dive with their eyes closed (yes, otherwise the water would knock them out on impact!).

They arrive late, around the beginning or even the middle of May. And already in the middle of August they fly back.
They arrive late, around the beginning or even the middle of May. And already in the middle of August they fly back. It is funny to watch them in the spring during the mating season. The female flies behind the male and demands to be courted. The male dives and catches the fish and immediately gives her the catch.