the 39-42 types of the terns forms a family of the Möwenartigen, quite uniform from the look. It is birds of the beach and coast-regions as well as (some types) the inner-waters of all continents (exception Antarctica). they have a slim body, long, narrow and sharpened wings and quite long tails, that are swallow-nicely bifurcate with many types. The legs and feet are small and quite weak so that terns move only little and rather awkwardly at country. Although the 3 front-toes (rear-toe small) are together interconnected through swimming-skins, only few tern-types more frequently swim on the water.
Way of life Most of all, terns with downward lowered beak like to fly few meters above the water-surface there in order to seize small cancers, fish and insects from the flight out. Very skillfully, the birds are able to seize its loot also through Stoßtauchen, with what however, they don't dive far, but appears again very fast at the surface and from it-flies with a fish in the beak. Through its low wing-surface, terns are only very bad sail-planes; in the "active" flight, however, they are superior to most coast-birds in mobility and endurance by far.
Spread Most of the types of the family live in tropical and subtropical regions, however, terns of the northern hemisphere undertake wide hikes to its winter-quarters (river-tern, coast-tern).
Marks and types The powerful beaks of terns are usually colored (important recognition-characteristic) red, yellow or black and exactly, long and pointed. In contrast to seagull-beaks is waiter and lower part equally long. Both sexes resemble from. With most types, the back is silver-gray or dark colored gray, the underside against it carries white plumage. Waiter-head and necks take off usually black; with some types - like Z. B. with it also in Central Europe native, approximately 40 cm of big fire-tern (sternums sandvicensis) - the rear-head carries a black feather-mop of hair. Also this with maximum 53-55 cm of total-length biggest type of the family, the giant or robbery-tern (Hydroprogne caspia), that as brood-bird in North America, Eurasia, Africa, Australia and New Zealand are spread that this color-distribution typical for terns has.
The 3 types of the type Chlidonias, among them the 24 cm big inner or mourning-tern C. Niger, that lives far in the inland also at rivers and seas and broods has mainly black plumage in the brood-dress. In the type sternums, which includes most of the types of the terns, only the 35 cm have big rein-tern (S). anaethetus, and that 40 cm long, actual soot-tern (S). fuscata, in the old-age-dress a black back-plumage. Soot-terns live in the open sea outside the incubation.
The group of the Noddiseeschwalben, from many zoologist as own subfamily severed, mainly brown or blue-gray plumage has. A dark brown plumage has the 36-40 cm big Noddiseeschwalbe (Anous stolidus), that lives in the open sea as one of the few types of these seagull-birds and broods on numerous islands of the tropical and subtropical seas, as far as on one light-gray head-plate. As single tern, the fairy-tern has a pure-white plumage. In the silence-dress, many tern-types look much lighter; also the black vertex then is white mostly pushes through.
Brood Terns brood colony-wisely on open, sandy or stony shore and coast-terrain. Many types build not any (or only very inadequately padded) nests out of plant-material but put its eggs directly in flat turned off ground-hollows. Exceptions of it form the fairy-tern and the 40 cm long one and dark-blue until slate-gray befiederte Inca-tern (Larosterna inca), who lives on the guano-islands also before and at the coasts of Peru and Chile. These interesting birds have a 5 cm long, white "beard-stripe", that moves bent from the mouth-corner to the back, on each head-side. Inca-terns live only in the area of the cold Humboldt-stream and brood in earth and guano-holes as well as in crevices.
The tropical types of the Noddiseeschwalben often form gigantic brood-colonies also like the soot-terns, with whom they are socialized from time to time, on the islands so that the excrement of the birds in the course of the time forms very thick settlements of the guano esteemed as fertilizer.
Usually, both alto-birds brood with terns, until the (mostly 1-3) far developed Dunenjungen (place-stools) slips. Both brood-partners feed its offspring with small fishings together, that forth-choke it not - like seagulls -, but in the beak here-carries. Young terns remain quite long dependent on its parents.
Besides the biggest type, the giant-tern, also the smallest tern breeds u. a. in Central Europe. The only 20-24 cm long dwarf-tern (sternums albifrons) is however little sociable and also broods individually; only rarely, some few pairs meet to small colonies. its entire spread-area stretches over west and North-Africa, Eurasia, East-Australia and New Guinea as well as over many smaller islands of this area and over the entire American continent.
Endangering Several terns are on the red list of the endangered types, according to the coast-tern (sternums paradisaea), with us. Dwarf-tern (sternums albifrons) and river-tern (sternums hirunda) are regarded endangered as strong.
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