Birdwatching - 3137 🐦

🦉 The common tern (Sterna hirundo)

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

A fish-eating bird from the gull family, much smaller than the common common gull. Its distinctive feature is a long tail with a deep notch, and generally sharp shapes. It arrives around the beginning of May, depending on the weather, which distinguishes it from seagulls.

This bird feeds on small fish and fry, mollusks, and insects. In a maneuverable graceful flight, terns fly for a long time above the water surface, seeing prey they hang in the air, and then quickly dive down and catch from the surface or slightly submerged in the water.