Birdwatching - 3173🐦

🦉 The common tern (Sterna hirundo)

• Sterna stearn, starn (Old English) tern
• hirundo (Latin) swallow

These graceful, sharp-bodied birds emerge in early to mid-May. They nest on sandy and pebble spits and islands in lakes and rivers. They build nests on flat sandy shores or on reed beds.

It feeds primarily on small fish, and to a lesser extent on insects, aquatic vertebrates, small lizards, and frogs. It hunts in a characteristic manner, regularly hovering in midair during its search flight, diving, and diving into the water completely submerged.