The Arctic Tern is a seabird that migrates every year from Antarctica to its Northern breeding grounds. I took this photo last summer in Iceland, which means the adult had migrated a distance of 70,000 kilometres. The Arctic tern sees two summers each year and their migration is one of the longest in the animal kingdom. The average Arctic tern lives about twenty years, however, National Geographic and the University of Alberta concluded in 2010 that more than 50% of the species will live past their 30th birthday. National Geographic calculated that during the lifespan of 30 years, an Arctic tern would have migrated over 2.4 million kilometres, the equivalent of traveling from Earth to the moon over 3 times. Click on the image to see a larger version.
