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Posted by United Press International on January 12, 2010, 12:44 pm
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NUUK, Greenland, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- Scientists in Greenland
have followed the epic 43,000-mile migration of the tiny Arctic tern
by fitting them with an even tinier tracking device.
In late summer, the 3.5-ounce Arctic terns fly south down
the African and Brazilian coasts and return north for the summer by
flying with the prevailing winds in a serpentine-shaped path up the
middle of the Atlantic Ocean, said Carsten Egevang of the Greenland
Institute of Natural Resources.
Tracking devices weighing 0.05 ounces enabled Egevang and
his team to follow the terns from North Pole to South Pole.
"The new thing is that we've now been able to track the bird
during a full year of migration, all the way from the breeding
grounds to the wintering grounds and back again," Egevang told the
BBC in a story published Tuesday.
The tracking devices, provided the British Antarctic
Society, showed the terns stop in the middle of the North Atlantic
to feed on zooplanton and fish before resuming their journey.
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