Roseate tern

So it's one of these global travellers, the longest distance migrant in the world.

One of the main birds, though, that Broderich tern protects through our work with the National Parks and Wildlife Service is a rare species called the roseate tern.

And that's Europe's rarest breeding seabird.

And Ireland is home to roughly 90% of the European breeding population.

So it's very important for us to try and safeguard that species particularly.

The vast majority of them nest on an island called Rockabill off the coast of North County, Dublin.

And we have nesting boxes for the roseate terns there.

But those terns, they don't nest by themselves.

When disturbed from their eggs, the Arctic Tern becomes very noisy and rise in fluttering crowds above the sacred spot, continuing to fly to and fro, screaming anxiously until the intruder retires.

Roseate Tern.

It is with some hesitation that I include this species, the Sterna Dugalli of Montague, in the present work, because if it really does visit our coasts now to breed, it is so exceedingly rare and local that any ordinary observer of bird life by the sea could scarcely hope to meet with it.

It is interesting to remark that the roseate tern was first made known to science from a skin that was sent to Montague from the Cumbrae Islands in the Firth of Clyde.

It was subsequently found breeding on the Farn Islands by Selby.

It formerly bred on the Scilly Islands, as well as on Fawlney and Walney, but so far as I can ascertain, there is no direct evidence that it breeds at any of these places now.

It may be distinguished from the common tern by its rosy under plumage, but as this is very apt to fade, a still more infallible distinction, according to Mr. Saunders, is the white inner margin to the primaries.

The roseate tern is a very late migrant, not reaching its breeding places until towards the end of May.