ɢᴏᴛᴄʜᴀ!
Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea | Küstenseeschwalbe)
Like in previous years, around 40 Arctic terns on their journey around the world luckily decided to do their breeding at my local lake. A few of them were fishing at the nearby Rhine harbor in Lauterbourg, Alsace, France
The species is strongly migratory, seeing two summers each year as it migrates along a convoluted route from its northern breeding grounds to the Antarctic coast for the southern summer and back again about six months later. Recent studies have shown average annual roundtrip lengths of about 70,900 km (44,100 mi) for birds nesting in Iceland and Greenland and 90,000 km (56,000 mi) for birds nesting in the Netherlands. [Wikipedia]
