Common tern
| Common tern | ||||||||||
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Common tern ( Sterna hirundo ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Sterna hirundo | ||||||||||
| Linnaeus , 1758 |
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The common tern ( Sterna hirundo ) is a species of bird in the family of the tern (Sternidae). It is a common, but not very common breeding and summer bird in Central Europe . During the migration period , many migrants can also be observed in Central Europe.
There are four subspecies .
description
The common tern looks similar to the arctic tern , but is slightly smaller. It reaches a height between 27 and 31 centimeters. The wing length is 23.9 and 28.7 centimeters, the wingspan 72 to 82 centimeters. Males tend to be slightly larger than females.
The slender common tern has a forked tail and a red bill with a black tip. Their plumage is white to light gray, their crown is deep black. In the plain dress the forehead is light, the beak black. The legs are red. Fledglings resemble non-breeding adult birds, but have scale-like spots on the top of their bodies. The parting is more brownish than blackish. The dark head cap is less clearly and clearly demarcated than in adult birds.
Your call sounds like "kick" or "kriäh".
distribution and habitat
The common tern ranges from northwest Europe to the Bering Sea in eastern Siberia. In North America, the common tern occurs from Canada to the Caribbean. Isolated breeding populations can also be found in northwest and northern Africa, southern Africa, Australia and southern South America.
The common tern is a long-distance migrant whose winter quarters are found in the tropics and the temperate latitudes of the southern hemisphere. The breeding birds of the Palearctic overwinter especially on the west coast of Africa and are relatively rare on the east African coast.
nutrition
The common tern is a skilled push diver. It mainly prey on small fish . Likewise are molluscs and insects on the menu.
Reproduction
The common tern breeds from May to August on coasts and on sparsely overgrown rock and sand islands . In inland, extra nesting rafts are made available, because otherwise undisturbed places can only be found in exceptional cases. The male advertises the female in courtship dance with a fish in its beak. In the nest , a hollow in the ground lined with stalks , the female lays one to four 4 cm eggs . Both parents warm the eggs for about three weeks until the chicks hatch. They defend their young by swooping. They also pounce on approaching people. The young birds fledge after three to four weeks.
Duration
Similar to the arctic tern, large population fluctuations are typical for the common tern . Basically, however, there was a population low in Central Europe around 1910. Since then, the species has recovered widely in Central and Western Europe, even though there were again significant declines in the period between 1950 and 1970 due to the use of pesticides and water pollution. At the beginning of the 21st century, with the exception of Poland, there are roughly stable or increasing populations. the Central European distribution focus is the Netherlands with 18,000 to 19,500 breeding pairs. Overall, the Central European breeding population is estimated at 35,000 to 39,000 breeding pairs at the beginning of the 21st century. The total European population is 270,000 to 570,000 breeding pairs. European countries with a population of more than 20,000 breeding pairs are Finland, Sweden, Belarus, Ukraine and the European part of Russia. In the Red List of Germany's breeding birds from 2015, the species is listed in Category 2 as critically endangered.
The common tern is considered to be one of the species that will be particularly hard hit by climate change. A research team that, on behalf of the British Environmental Protection Agency and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, examined the future development of the distribution of European breeding birds on the basis of climate models assumes that the range of the common tern will shrink considerably by the end of the 21st century will move north. Especially in Eastern Europe, the distribution area will be significantly more fragmented. According to these forecasts, there are potentially new breeding areas for this species on Iceland and in parts of Novaya Zemlya , but these cannot compensate for the loss of area, especially in Eastern Europe.
literature
- Hans-Günther Bauer, Einhard Bezzel and Wolfgang Fiedler (eds.): The compendium of birds in Central Europe: Everything about biology, endangerment and protection. Volume 1: Nonpasseriformes - non-sparrow birds. Aula-Verlag Wiebelsheim, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-89104-647-2 .
- Brian Huntley, Rhys E. Green, Yvonne C. Collingham, Stephen G. Willis: A Climatic Atlas of European Breeding Birds , Durham University , The RSPB and Lynx Editions, Barcelona 2007, ISBN 978-84-96553-14-9
- Hadoram Shirihai : A Complete Guide to Antarctic Wildlife - The Birds and Marine Mammals of the Antarctic Continent and Southern Ocean , Alula Press, Degerby 2002, ISBN 951-98947-0-5
Web links
- Sterna hirundo in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2008. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2008. Accessed on December 23 of 2008.
- Videos, photos and sound recordings for Sterna hirundo in the Internet Bird Collection
- Distinction between common and arctic tern with comments on the forest and rose tern, technical article by Peter H. Barthel from Limicola, Volume 5 (1991), page 1 (PDF; 6.0 MB)
- Distribution map at EBCC Atlas of European Breeding Birds
- Common tern feathers
Individual evidence
- ^ Shirihai, p. 231
- ↑ a b Bauer et al., P. 647
- ↑ Bauer et al., P. 648
- ↑ Christoph Grüneberg, Hans-Günther Bauer, Heiko Haupt, Ommo Hüppop, Torsten Ryslavy, Peter Südbeck: Red List of Germany's Breeding Birds , 5 version . In: German Council for Bird Protection (Hrsg.): Reports on bird protection . tape 52 , November 30, 2015.
- ^ Huntley et al., P. 227