Arctic Tern 170609

...having heard quite a bit about this bird we were almost surprised to find that it was - just as the initial finder(s) had reported - a pretty ordinary-looking Arctic Tern; the only odd features seemed to be that it had all the appearance of being a breeding bird which is very unusual for this part of the world (it kept returning to the same scrape which it defended very aggressively) and that it had a remarkably long bill for an Arctic Tern (in direct comparison it was clearly longer-billed than several Common Terns present). Unfortunately it was too far away to get any decent photos but the little selection below give a fair idea of its appearance and behaviour.