Common Tern

I found this beautiful Tern sitting on a rock at a very surprising spot for myself - by the coasts of Baltic Sea, next to a busy Pirita Road in Tallinn. I was on my way to song festival! I got a nice treat of such a close-up of a common tern in addition to a wonderful experience in song festival.

The common tern is a seabird of the tern family Sternidae. This bird has a circumpolar distribution, its four subspecies breeding in temperate and subarctic regions of Europe, Asia and North America. It is strongly migratory, wintering in coastal tropical and subtropical regions. Breeding adults have light grey upperparts, white to very light grey underparts, a black cap, orange-red legs, and a narrow pointed bill. Depending on the subspecies, the bill may be mostly red with a black tip or all black. There are a number of similar species, including the partly sympatric Arctic tern, which can be separated on plumage details, leg and bill colour, or vocalisations.

I first got to know the very angry version of tern in Iceland. They were quite vicious and protecting their little ones or something, while attacking everybody who got too close. It was quite a scary look, though the birds are small, but when the come in flocks - better run!