From American Streamline, Departures, P 23, by Oxford University
Press.
The Arctic Tern
This seabird holds the record for long distance migration. Arctic
Tern breed in Northern Canada, Greenland, northern Europe, Siberia
and Alaska. In late August they set off on na 11,000-mile journey
which takes them South past the western coasts of Europe and Africa (
9,000 in 90 days ). They then fly around to the Indian Ocean and down
to Antartica, where they spend the Antarctic summer. On the way back
they sometimes make a complete circle of Antartica before returning
to their breeding grounds. The round trip is about 22,000 miles in
eight months ( 150 miles a day when they are flying ). The Arctic
Tern sees more hours of daylight than any other creature because it
experiences two summers a year- One in the Arctic region and one in
the Antartic. These regions have almost constant daylight in summer.
One tern, which was tagged with a rind in Norway as a chick, died in
exactly the same place, twenty-seven years later. Presumably, it had
made the journey twenty-seven times.