Arctic Tern

The Arctic tern is a medium-sized tern 33–36 cm long with a wingspan of 76–85 cm, weighing about 100 g. In the breeding season it is mainly grey and white, with a blood-red beak and feet, a black crown and nape and white cheeks, a grey mantle and a completely white collar and rump. Its migrations are by far the longest known in the animal kingdom, from northern breeding grounds to the Antarctic coast and back about six months later, with the shortest distance between the two areas about 19,000 km (Wikipedia, general species account).

It has a circumpolar breeding distribution across the Arctic and subarctic of Europe, Asia and North America, and is strongly migratory, seeing two summers each year. Arctic terns are long-lived, many reaching 15–30 years with a record of 31, and lay one to three eggs, most often two. The cached account gives no detail specific to India. SoIB 2023 lists it as a bird of uncertain migratory status in wetland that eats vertebrates, and does not assign a priority category (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).