Arctic terns… beautiful, graceful… and feared by many!

Elegant and graceful in flight, the arctic tern is one of the prettiest of birds

Arctic terns have a bit of a love/hate relationship with people here in Iceland.  I absolutely love them but many people don’t and I can understand why.  They are feisty little birds that can be unbelievably noisy and aggressive if you walk near to where they are nesting during the breeding season and I have seen many grown men run in fear from these tiny little avian warriors!

 Arctic terns  (Kría in Icelandic) tend to begin to appear in April and by May/June they are everywhere.  They are incredibly graceful and amazing fliers.  And with their wedged tail, their sharp pointy wings and the colour contrast of bright red legs and beak, snowy white plumage and black head, they really are exceptionally pretty

Coming in to land

But not only is the arctic tern pretty and graceful, it is a truly fascinating and impressive bird.  It makes the longest known migration of any animal, travelling between the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions, where it breeds, to the Antarctic, where it winters, each year.

So these tiny birds that we see nesting here in Iceland make a round trip that averages 70,900km (44,055mi) every year between their nesting and wintering grounds. The lifespan of an arctic tern is some 20-30 years and it makes this journey every year!  Therefore, the average arctic tern will travel some 2.4 million kilometres (1.5 million miles) during its lifetime, the equivalent of over three roundtrips from Earth to the Moon! 

Due to their long migrations it is said that no creature on earth is exposed to so much daylight!

Captured in flight, it looks so effortless!

They feed mainly on fish and it’s amazing to watch them hovering over the water, a bit like a kestrel, and then darting down as they dive straight down to the water to catch their prey. 

This parent is just about to descend to the nest

I love watching the terns in the summer and this year made it my aim to get a few good pictures of them.  This is easier said than done as they fly so quickly and getting a sharp picture of them in the air is not an easy task.  I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve clicked the shutter as they swoop and dive in front of me, only to discover that I’ve actually captured a shot of grass, or sky with no bird in it at all, or if I’m lucky just the tip of a tail as it zips out of shot!!  Whenever trying to photograph these birds I give thanks that we have digital cameras now and so I can just delete the rubbish shots with birds that are blurred (or that I’ve missed altogether!!)  I am starting to get a bit better at catching them now and have managed to get a few shots that I really like, some of which are here on this blog.

Bringing a tasty fish back to the nest!

So, given all this, why is the diminutive Kría so disliked by so many Icelanders and feared by so many tourists?  Well, the thing is that they are such pretty little birds and when you see dozens of them swooping and hovering together, they look so amazing that the automatic response is to go closer to watch them or try to take pictures of them.  But what most people don’t realise is that terns nest on the flat ground in the grass or vegetation, particularly grassland near the coast, so it’s easy to walk right into a colony without realising it.  Arctic terns actually show no aggression whatsoever towards humans except when we approach their eggs and young. They are, however, extremely protective of their young and attack anyone approaching them by divebombing them and trying to peck them in the head with their pointy beaks.  People who have ignored their warnings have been known to end up with several bleeding wounds on their heads!

I was proud to get this as I was being attacked at the time!

One of the first things we learned when travelling during the summer was how to recognise the terns’ nesting sites.  They breed in colonies that can range from a few to several thousand pairs so it’s easy to do.  I’ve never yet actually seen a tern’s nest or eggs, but if walking near a grassy area we’ve often heard the cries of the arctic terns and seen many of them flying back and forth and then hovering over a particular patch of grass before swooping down and disappearing for a short while.  So it’s clear that you are near a colony.  At this point, no birds are likely to attack, but if you continue to approach the colony those birds with a nest closest to you will start giving a fast and aggressive alarm call that sounds like kt-kt-kt-kt as well as the first attempts to dive at you. At this point, if you turn around and go the opposite way for a short distance, calm will be restored and all will be well. 

This one is not happy! Time to retreat.

If you do continue to approach, they will attack.  The attack consists of dive-flights to your head. At the very last moment they will back off rarely hitting you but they come so close that you can feel the wind from their wings as they change direction and wheel round for another attack.  Unless you retreat, it can feel as if you’ve stumbled onto the set of an Alfred Hitchcock film!!  Anyone who ignores these warnings and continues to walk into the area where precious eggs and young are hidden in the grass really is asking for trouble and there will come a point where the birds stop feinting and will actually peck with their sharp beaks.

I have to say that given the difference in size between the tiny arctic tern and ourselves, and the fact that if we walk over their breeding ground we will undoubtedly crush the eggs or baby birds, I have a huge amount of respect for these brave and feisty little birds. 

Definitely one of the most elegant of birds

One of the biggest colonies near us in Reykjavík is at the Seltjarnarnes golf course, where golfers are frequently dive bombed and attacked for doing nothing more than trying to play a round of golf.  It is a common, and really quite amusing, sight to see golfers ducking and flinching under the onslaught of these beautiful but fierce birds.  Luckily there is an easy way of avoiding a punctured skull.  If you hold a stick (or golf club or umbrella etc) up above your head the birds will continue to scream and dive, but they will always focus on the highest point so whatever you are holding up will get the onslaught, rather than your head.

This is why, lovely as they are, the arctic terns are seen as a real nuisance during the summer months.  But to be honest, I don’t understand why.  Most of the time, they were there long before we were.  If we insist on walking into an area where they are nesting then we knowingly run a risk.  If we decide to build a golf course in an area where there is abundant birdlife, there is going to be trouble. The arctic tern is a protected species, and we should under no circumstances even be trying to enter or disturb their colonies.   All they are doing is being good parents and protecting their young.  Maybe it is we who are the nuisance rather than the terns?