Elegant tern

Elegant tern and Sandwich terns

The weather being set for pretty damned miserable I decided to go to the seaside. The elegant tern that had stayed at Cemlyn has moved over to the Sandwich tern roost at Hightown, and seeing as it's only ten minutes' walk from the station I thought I should try my luck with it.

Half a dozen chaps with telescopes pointed out where the bird had last been seen. It was one of a flock of dozing Sandwich terns less than a hundred yards out. I spent two hours staring and scanning the flock in the gloom. After a while I had to consciously pull my eyes back into focus every so often as the terns kept on snoozing. Once in a while I'd catch a flash of yellow in the corner of my eye only for all the birds to have their beaks tucked into their back feathers when I turned to look at them.

Sandwich terns

Sandwich terns

Sandwich terns

Sandwich terns and common gulls

Sandwich terns

Something spooked the birds and they all rose up. I cursed, thinking I'd had my chance. By a stroke of luck the elegant tern landed at the front of the flock and showed very well. Though by this time I'd gotten to the stage where I was staring at it for an age without seeing it. In the dim light the bird's bright straw yellow bill was far less striking than the Sandwich terns' black bills. The thing that particularly struck me was the shaggy plumage, even more so than the Sandwich terns, and the length of the curved bill. A challenging bird but well worth the effort.

Elegant tern and Sandwich terns

The supporting cast was pretty good, too. A couple of hundred Sandwich terns, at least a couple of dozen common terns, a few young "commic" terns that defeated me, a couple of definite young Arctic terns, a couple of Mediterranean gulls, and the usual selection of seaside gulls. Redshanks, curlews and ringed plovers fed on the mud with pied wagtails and meadow pipits and I had a brief view of a common sandpiper fossicking round in one of the creeks.

I took up the offer of a look at the elegant tern through one of the telescopes (thank you, sir), took a few photos, took a look at the weather and called it quits. It had been a good session and a nice addition to the life list.