Common Tern

The word tern via an East Anglian dialect, from some Scandinavian (North Germanic) language, related to Danish terne, Norwegian terne, and Swedish tärna, all from Old Norse þerna (“tern; maidservant”), ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *þewernā (“handmaid, young girl”). First attested in the 1670s.

• Singular: tern

• Plural: terns

The common tern was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae under its current scientific name, Sterna hirundo. "Stearn" was used in Old English, and a similar word was used by the Frisians for the birds. "Stearn" appears in the poem The Seafarer, written around 1000 A.D. Linnaeus adopted this word for the genus name Sterna.

The Latin for swallow is hirundo, and refers here to the tern's superficial likeness to that unrelated bird, which has a similar light build and long forked tail. This resemblance also leads to the informal name "sea swallow", recorded from at least the seventeenth century.

Breeding adults have orange-red legs, a narrow pointed bill, light grey upperparts, and white to the very light grey underparts. They also have a black cap. The bill may be entirely black or mostly red depending on the subspecies.

The common tern belongs to the family Laridae, which includes gulls, skimmers, and other terns. Evolutionarily, common terns arose in the Northern Hemisphere, adapting to coastal and inland waters and spreading widely across temperate regions. The close relatives of this species were Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea), Roseate tern (Sterna dougallii), and Forster’s tern (Sterna forsteri).

The common tern's flight is nimble, buoyant, and able to go great distances. They used airborne plunge dives for their foraging in order to capture small fish. These terns may float and paddle for short periods of time, but they are not very good swimmers; their main means of movement and escape is flight. Using astronomical and magnetic signals, this tern's navigation provided good orientation during migration.

The common tern, for instance, has two unique alarms: the kee-yah, which is also employed as a warning to intruders, and the shorter kyar, which is provided when an individual takes flight in response to a more serious threat. This quiets the normally loud colony while its members evaluate the hazard.

In Rapunzel's universe, when prey is splashed with the water that common terns may spit out, it can quickly render them wetted. It is believed that this skill developed because of a need to raise the percentage of prey that can be caught in order to supply enough food for a pack before or after the migration.

The common tern breeds in a wider variety of habitats compared to its relatives, and it easily adapts to artificial substrates like floating rafts. It nests on any flat, sparsely vegetated surface near water. The nest could just be a rough patch of gravel or sand, but it is frequently lined or edged in whatever silt is nearby.

A maximum of 3 eggs may be set, and on an open beach, their muted hues and splotchy patterns serve as camouflage. The eggs are incubated by both sexes and hatch in about 21–22 days, though this time may be extended if a predatory animal disturbs the colony. In 22–28 days, the downy chicks fledge. While mollusks, crustaceans, and other invertebrate prey may make up a sizable portion of their diet in some regions, this species, like most terns, forages by plunging underwater for fish in either saltwater or freshwater.

The species is opportunistic, its diet consisting predominantly of small fish and occasionally planktonic crustaceans and insects. Big birds like gulls, owls, and herons, as well as mammals like rats and American mink, are prone to predating on eggs and young. Although blood parasites seem to be uncommon, mites, parasitic worms, and lice can all infect common terns.

The common tern is known for dive-bombing intruders, including humans and predators, and is quite noisy and protective around its nests. Terns are frequently tolerant of boats and humans outside of breeding season. In urban rivers, they may seem "friendly," yet they are still untamed and wary.

Threats

• Habitat loss (coastal development, damming of rivers).

• Disturbance at nesting sites.

• Egg and chick predation (rats, cats, foxes).

• Pollution and overfishing.

• Climate change (sea-level rise, altered fish distribution).

Conservation Status

• IUCN Red List: Least Concern (LC)

Conservation Efforts

• Many local populations are protected and actively managed with:

  • Nesting islands

  • Seasonal closures

  • Predator control

• Anti-poaching enforcement.

• Rescue and rehabilitation centers.

• Awareness campaigns against illegal pet trade.

With the exception of the far north, this species has a cold polar distribution and breeds throughout the majority of Europe, Asia, and North America. Further south, where it spends the winter, it can be found along South America's coast and interior, including Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), across Africa's coast (save for northern Africa), along parts of Arabian Peninsula, along India's coast, and all of south-east Asia and Australasia, save for New Zealand.

The species can be found breeding in a wide range of coastal and inland habitats from sea level to altitudes of more than 4,000 m. It prefers to nest on flat rock surfaces on inshore islands, accessible shingle and sandy beaches, dunes and spits, vegetative cover inter-dune areas, sandy, rocky, shell-strewn, or well-vegetated islands in estuaries, coastal lagoons, saltmarshes, mainland peninsulas, and grassy plateaus atop coastal cliffs along the coast. Similar habitats include shingle banks in rivers, sand or gravel pits, marshes, ponds, grassy areas, and patches of dredged soil. It may also nest on sandy, rocky, shell-strewn, or well-vegetated islands in lakes and rivers.

During The Recollections of Queen Arianna (TROQA) saga in the 2600s and 2700s, the "Sky People," or Terrans from Earth, brought the common tern to two exoplanets that resembled Earth: Berbania from Ursa Major and Reinachos from Cygnus. Despite the death of our planet, conservation efforts are helping this species recover from endangerment or near extinction. The tern became an invasive species as a result of human interactions for game hunting and rewilding. In two exoplanets that resembled Earth, the common tern lived in conditions and climates identical to those of Earth.

• Movement Pattern: Full Migrant

• Individual Type: Gather

• Population Trend: Stable

• Population: ???

• Locomotion: Versatile

• Habitat: Polar; Tundra; Taiga; Montane Grasslands and Shrublands; Temperate Coniferous Forests; Temperate Broadleaf and Mixed Forests; Temperate Deciduous Forests; Temperate Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands; Subtropical Coniferous Forests; Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests; Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests; Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands; Salt Flats; Stone Forest; Tropical Coniferous Forests; Tropical Moist Broadleaf Forests; Tropical Dry Broadleaf Forests; Tropical Grasslands; Tropical Savannas and Shrublands; Mediterranean Forests, Woodlands, and Scrub; Mushroom Forests; Mushroom Fields; Deserts and Xeric Shrublands; Badlands; Flooded Grasslands and Savannas; Swamp; Bayous/Billabongs; Riparian; Wetland; Mangrove Forest; Cold Bamboo Forests; Tropical Bamboo Forests; Air-breathing Coral Reefs; Graveyard Vale; Mountain; Sky; Warm River; Cold River; Lukewarm River; Warm Littoral; Cold Littoral; Warm Intertidal; Cold Intertidal; Radiated Citadel; Volcano; Warm Ghost Town; Cold Ghost Town; Ruined Skyscraper.

• Earth: 

  • Extant (Resident): Algeria; Angola; Anguilla; Antigua and Barbuda; Argentina; Aruba; Australia; Azerbaijan; Bahamas; Bangladesh; Barbados; Belgium; Benin; Bhutan; Bolivia; Brazil; Brunei Darussalam; Cabo Verde; Cambodia; Cameroon; Canada; Cayman Islands; Chile; China; Colombia; Congo Republic; DR Congo; Cuba; Cyprus; Côte d'Ivoire; Denmark; Djibouti; Dominica; Dominican Republic; Ecuador; Egypt; El Salvador; Equatorial Guinea; Eritrea; Falkland Islands (Malvinas); Finland; France; French Guiana; Gabon; Gambia; Germany; Ghana; Gibraltar; Greece; Grenada; Guatemala; Guinea; Guinea-Bissau; Guyana; Haiti; Honduras; Hong Kong; India; Indonesia; Iran; Iraq; Ireland; Israel; Italy; Japan; Kenya; Korea, Democratic People's Republic of; Korea, Republic of; Liberia; Libya; Luxembourg; Madagascar; Mali; Malta; Martinique; Mauritius; Mexico; Moldova; Montenegro; Montserrat; Morocco; Mozambique; Myanmar; Namibia; Nepal; New Caledonia; Nicaragua; Nigeria; North Macedonia; Oman; Pakistan; Panama; Papua New Guinea; Peru; Philippines; Poland; Portugal; Puerto Rico; Romania; Russia (European Russia); Réunion; Saint Kitts and Nevis; Saint Lucia; Saint Pierre and Miquelon; Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; Serbia; Seychelles; Sierra Leone; Singapore; Slovakia; Solomon Islands; Somalia; South Africa; South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; Spain; Sri Lanka; Suriname; Sweden; Syrian Arab Republic; Taiwan, Province of China; Tanzania, United Republic of; Thailand; Timor-Leste; Togo; Trinidad and Tobago; Tunisia; Ukraine; United Arab Emirates; Vanuatu; Venezuela; Viet Nam; Western Sahara

  • Extant (Breeding): Afghanistan; Albania; Armenia; Austria; Belarus; Bermuda; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Bulgaria; Croatia; Czechia; Estonia; Faroe Islands; Georgia; Hungary; Kazakhstan; Kyrgyzstan; Latvia; Lithuania; Mauritania; Mongolia; Netherlands; Norway; Russia (Central Asian Russia, Eastern Asian Russia); Senegal; Slovenia; Switzerland; Tajikistan; Turkey; Turkmenistan; Turks and Caicos Islands; United Kingdom; United States; Uzbekistan

  • Extant (Non-breeding): Belize; Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba (Sint Eustatius, Saba, Bonaire); Costa Rica; Curaçao; Guadeloupe; Guam; Malaysia; Marshall Islands; Micronesia; Northern Mariana Islands; Palau; Saint Martin (French part); Sint Maarten (Dutch part); Uruguay; Virgin Islands, British; Virgin Islands, U.S.

  • Extant (Passage): Bahrain; Jordan; Kuwait; Lebanon; Palestine, State of; Qatar; Saudi Arabia; Sudan; Yemen

  • Extant (Seasonality Uncertain): Saint Barthelemy

  • Extant & Vagrant (Passage): Fiji; Paraguay

  • Extant & Vagrant (Seasonality Uncertain): Jamaica

  • Extant & Vagrant: Cocos (Keeling) Islands; Comoros; Cook Islands; Iceland; Liechtenstein; Malawi; Maldives; New Zealand; Zambia

In the majority of nations in our universe, common terns were not appropriate nor permitted as pets. They need particular foods, a lot of flying room, and a social structure. They are protected by wildlife regulations and migratory bird restrictions. It would be unethical and detrimental to natural populations to keep one.

Coming soon

• Various names of any foreign languages

• Tagalog: Karaniwang Bako

• Bahasa Melayu: Burung Camar Siput

• Mandarin: 普通燕鷗

• Mandarin (Simplified): 普通燕鸥

• Mandarin（Traditional): 普通燕鷗

• Nihon: アジサシ

• Korean: 제비갈매기

• Türkçe: Bayağı sumru

• Arabic: الخرشنة الشائعة, خطاف البحر

• Latvian: Upinė žuvėdra

• Polski: Rybitwa rzeczna

• Russian: Обыкновенная крачка

• Belarusian: Речна рибарка

• Sloven: Rybár riečny

• Breton: Skravig boutin

• Română: Chira de baltă

• Italiano: Rondinella di mare

• French: Sterne pierregarin

• Spanish: Charrán común

• Portuguese: Andorinha-do-mar-comum

• Deutsch: Fluss-Seeschwalbe

• Nederlands: Visdief

• Dansk: Fjordterne

• Norsk: Makrellterne

• Svenska: Fisktärna

• Zeelandic: Nikke

• Coming soon

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_tern

• https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22694623/155537726

• https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sterna_hirundo

• https://www.pinterest.ph/pin/619807967450306242/

• https://www.deviantart.com/ognimdo2002/art/Common-Tern-919165095