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struggle for life
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| Photo Information |
Copyright: Michel Detay (M_Detay)
![Silver Star Critiquer/Gold Note Writer [C: 12 W: 0 N: 104]](http://i1.treknature.com/misc/s-n-g.gif) (493) |
| Genre: Animals |
| Medium: Color |
| Date Taken: 2007-09-02 |
| Categories: Birds |
| Camera: Nikon D2X, Nikkor ED 400mm 1/2.8 D |
| Exposure: f/3.5, 1/1250 seconds |
| More Photo Info: [view] |
| Map: [view] |
| Photo Version: Original Version |
| Date Submitted: 2007-09-28 4:31 |
| Viewed: 514 |
| Points: 4 |
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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
STRUGGLE FOR LIFE: feeding time for the young arctic tern.
Picture taken on a beach in the Snaefellness beginning of September. At this time of the year in north Iceland the young Stern are still fed by the adults. To get the food it is a big fight between adults trying to get the food from others and between young stern trying to get the food for themselves.
I was freezing on the beach, trying to get the flavor of what was going on. Using a 400 mm (i.e. 600 mm on a digital camera); ISO on 200; everything take place in a blink of an eye (speed 1250); no much light f:3,5 (i.e. small depth of field).
The story is that the adult was trying to give some food to his young guy (the one on the right) but another young was trying to get the food (the one on the back). Lots of noise, fast action.
The Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea) is a seabird of the tern family Sternidae. This bird has a circumpolar distribution, breeding colonially in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and North America (as far south as Brittany and Massachusetts). The species is strongly migratory, seeing two summers each year as it migrates from its northern breeding grounds to the oceans around Antarctica and back (about 24,000 miles) each year. This is the longest regular migration by any known animal.
Arctic Terns are medium-sized birds. They have a length of 33–39 centimetres (13–15 in) and a wingspan of 76–85 cm (26–30 in). They are mainly grey and white plumaged, with a red beak (as long as the head, straight, with pronounced gonys) and feet, white forehead, a black nape and crown (streaked white), and white cheeks. The grey mantle is 305mm, and the scapulars are fringed brown, some tipped white. The upper wing is grey with a white leading edge, and the collar is completely white, as is the rump. The deeply forked tail is whitish, with grey outer webs. The hindcrown to the ear-coverts is black.
The Arctic Tern is K-selected, caring for and aggressively defending a small number of young.
Parents feed them fish for a considerable time, and help them fly south to winter. Arctic Terns are long-lived birds, with many reaching twenty years of age. They eat mainly fish and small marine invertebrates. |
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| To martic: Focus | M_Detay |
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09-28 06:03 |
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