Setting aside politics and dreary old Icesave for a minute, here’s something pretty amazing.
Anyone who has visited Iceland in the summers has surely been accosted by the Arctic tern – one fierce bird that the Icelanders call kría – because that is basically the screeching sound it makes when it swoops down on your head and tries to attack you – or at the very least to scare the hell out you [till you haul ass out of its nesting area].
It has long been known that the kría migrates from Iceland or Greenland to South Africa on an annual basis. However, a new study has just revealed their migration patterns, and it transpires that no animal travels further than the kría – each bird travels around 70,000 kilometres per year.
An individual kría can become around 30 years old, which means that during its lifetime it travels the equivalent of three times to the moon and back.
They can be annoying as hell, but honestly, only one word fits the bill:*
RESPECT!
* pun intended
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
The terns are seriously aggressive (but incredibly pretty especially when they’re diving for fish around the Tjörnin).
But Iceland’s scariest birds have to be the skua. We spent an awesomely fun day driving on the beaches at the Solheimasandur last summer. On the way back, one of the resident skuas took offence at our presence and decided to play chicken (ahem) with our JEEP. Fabulous bird and brave as anything to protect its young.
Can you mail one to Gordon Brown?
..and beauty. What a picture. What a mover!
sylvia from viking wirral
I hate to be picky, but the distance travelled is about 2.5 times the distance to the moon and back (earth to moon is 400 000 km, assume each bird does 70 000 km per year for 30 years). It’s still a very impressive number. We should probably write off the extra 400 000 km.
Feel free to edit or not to post this, it’s just that I teach this sort of stuff at university and I like to see the correct numbers! For the record your estimate was a lot better than many of my students can manage.
Great website by the way. I have become a regular browser.
Andrew
Ah ha, I’ve just seen on Reuter’s that the life expectancy of the bird is 34 years, not 30, so that neatly explains the discrepancy! Three times to the moon and back it is!
Quite remarkable!
Cheers
Andrew
Great photo Alda !
Oh yeah, I got attacked by one while on Hrísey, in the bird reserve, while reading a placard about arctic terns… Didn’t like me reading about her, I guess.
Fearless they are.
A beautiful picture of a beautiful bird. Respect is exactly right.
The kría is my favourite bird in Iceland, the lundi close behind. They are absolutely awesome, particularly impressing in the Westfjords.
That’s a very good photo. When trying to take pics of them, I had always problems to focus because they are so fast.
When they swoop down on you, they change their screeching and start sounding rather like a machine gun. And they start to throw “bombs”. Given their size, they are extremely courageous.
Unfortunately, I have read, that their population has decreased in the last years – as well as the number of puffins.
Brilliant!
I enjoyed their fury on Grimsey!
“Come let me Fly you to the Moon to Jupiter and Mars da da da” maybe they sing that old Frank Sinatra number on the way down as they fly away from island ,why go all the way to South Africa just go to the Cayman islands some Icelandic Mafia manage to have a nice time there heh heh ha ha.
I should add that in Derby in the UK they once had a ram whose horns were so big that they reached up to the moon. Apparantly, a boy set off climbing them in January and didn’t get back ’til June. ‘Indeed sir, ’tis true sir, I never was given to lie, And if you’d been to Derby sir, you’d have seen it as well as I.’ (old song).
sylvia from viking wirral
Wonderful birds indeed!
Some people firmly believe they make a different sound though.
E.g. Colin Mochrie in Whose Line Is It Anyway: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBzwv057GPs
The arctic tern is not content with South-Africa, it travels all the way to the southern tip of South-America and northernmost reaches of Antartica.
As for birds defending their territory, try the Whooper Swan during the nesting season, it is several times the size of the Skua and capable of causing serious, even fatal injuries.