Busy bird flies twice around the world

IF you had just completed a journey of 59,650 miles, chances are you’d feel like you deserved a break.

And that’s what bird trackers gave an Arctic tern which returned to its breeding site on the Farne Islands off Northumberland after clocking up the longest migration ever recorded for any animal.

The bird was one of 28 Arctic terns on the Farne Islands which were fitted with tiny geo-locator tags to allow their movements on their migration to Antarctica to be monitored.

The birds return to the same nesting area, which allows them to be recaught and the tags removed.

And that included the tern which recorded the trip more than twice the circumference of the planet.

“We decided to give the bird a year off,” said Dr Richard Bevan, from Newcastle University’s school of natural and environmental sciences.

Richard is running the tagging project with Newcastle University’s Dr Chris Redfern, a trustee and recent past chairman of the Natural History Society of Northumbria, whose members sponsored the cost of tags.

This year, 25 Arctic terns have been tagged, including the marathon bird.

The geo-locator showed that after it left Northumberland, it flew down the coast of Africa, into the Indian Ocean, on to Antarctica and the Weddell Sea which forms the southernmost tip of the Atlantic Ocean, then back via Africa.

“It is truly remarkable. It is a bit of a mystery why they go quite so far,” said Dr Bevan.

The miles are piled up because the Arctic terns, which can land on and feed from the sea, do not need to fly direct to their migration destination.

Dr Bevan added: “What we are interested in are things like do they go to the same areas, do they take advantage of weather conditions like winds, or do they go to a specific area regardless of what else is happening.”