The Arctic Tern is a seabird of the tern family Sternidae. This bird has a circumpolar distribution, breeding colonially in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and North America (as far south as Brittany and Massachusetts). The species is strongly migratory, seeing two summers each year as it migrates from its northern breeding grounds to the oceans around Antarctica and back each year. This is the longest regular migration by any known animal. Arctic Terns are medium-sized birds, with a length of 33-39 centimetres (13-15 in) and a wingspan of 76-85 cm (26-30 in). They are mainly grey and white plumaged, with a red beak (as long as the head, straight, with pronounced gonys) and feet, white forehead, a black nape and crown (streaked white), and white cheeks. The Arctic Tern is K-selected, caring for and aggressively defending a small number of young. Parents feed them fish for a considerable time, and help them fly south to winter. Arctic Terns are long-lived birds, with many reaching twenty years of age. They eat mainly fish and small marine invertebrates. The species is abundant, with an estimated one million individuals. While the trend in the number of individuals in the species as a whole is not known, exploitation in the past has reduced this bird's numbers in the southern reaches of its range.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Tern

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1770: James Cook and the crew of HM Bark Endeavour made their first landfall on Australia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HM_Bark_Endeavour)

1882: Ernst Werner von Siemens began operating his "Elektromote", the world's first trolleybus. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus)

1945: Adolf Hitler dictated his last will and testament to his secretary Traudl Junge in the Führerbunker, and then married Eva Braun in a brief ceremony. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_will_and_testament_of_Adolf_Hitler)

1991: A powerful tropical cyclone struck Chittagong, killing at least 138,000 people and leaving as many as 10 million homeless in Bangladesh. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Bangladesh_cyclone)

1992: The acquittal of policemen who had beaten Rodney King sparked civil unrest in Los Angeles. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

I have been in a multitude of shapes, Before I assumed a consistent form. I have been a sword, narrow, variegated, I will believe when it is apparent. I have been a tear in the air, I have been the dullest of stars. I have been a word among letters, I have been a book in the origin. -- Taliesin (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Taliesin)