Caspian Tern on my old patch

Mike Weedon scored heavily with an adult Caspian Tern at Baston & Langtoft Pits, my old stomping ground during my teenage years. Though a regular vagrant to Britain, it's an undeniably impressive species and, with a clear afternoon on the cards, I couldn't resist twitching it.

By the time I arrived it had been missing for the best part of 45 minutes but, after a nervous wait, was picked up fishing over some of the more mature pits in the middle of the (private) complex. Views were initially distant but it then had the decency to perform a close fly-by as it headed back to its favoured roosting spot on the new wader scrape on the north side of the pits - this fantastic site has been producing great birds for a couple of years now, and finally it's had its first true rarity.

Incidentally the bird bears a red ring, identifying it as the individual seen previously in Carmarthenshire and Northamptonshire. The red ring seems to suggest it's Swedish, though I'm not sure if anyone has managed to read the ring fully yet. It'll be interesting to see where it pops up next, assuming it doesn't hang around at BLGP.

A few grab shots below - hurriedly taken using sub-optimal settings and against a grey sky, and not really in focus. But you can tell what it is!

Forster's Tern in Essex

For anyone who took up twitching after the early 2000s, Forster's Tern has been a real British blocker. This bird, found yesterday on the Stour Estuary, is the first to linger anywhere in Britain since 2003 - and in fact the last widely twitchable bird was a couple of years further back than that. As such, this bird attracted quite large crowd on a bleak November day.

I've seen two Forster's Terns in Ireland (the regularly returning bird in Co Galway and a first-winter in Co Mayo in February 2014) but it was hard to ignore the temptation of heading up to Mistley this morning for a British tick, particularly given how well the bird was reported to have shown on Saturday afternoon. Eventually it did one close fly-by but in my haste I didn't notice my camera settings were a little awry and the meagre offerings below are about as good as it got for me. Weather conditions and light were absolutely awful and as anyone with a camera will know, photographing a grey bird on a grey background is never particularly easy - particularly as it bombs past at high speed.

Forster's Tern, Mistley, Essex, 20 November 2016

Not a bad weekend...

Planning to visit family in South Lincs on Friday night and Saturday, I could resist calling in to Broom Gravel Pits near Biggleswade on my way up. A White-winged Black Tern had been found there earlier in the day and was still present on arrival, showing well over the pit - if a little distantly for photos. the bird was characteristically restless, rapid and unpredictable as it fed over the pit; occasionally it would head down to the south end of the pit and rest on the spit for up to ten minutes before recommencing feeding. I haven't had chance to check yet but I think this may be the first White-winged Black I've seen in Britain since 2006!

It was a pretty grey evening in Bedfordshire and photo opportunities were limited, this being the only half-decent shot I managed. There are a couple more on my Flickr page.

The pits at Gypsy Lane look great and it's no surprise to see that good birds are regularly reported there; best of the rest in the hour I spent on site was a Black-tailed Godwit plus the usual Little Ringed Plovers, Redshanks, Yellow Wags etc.

Saturday dawned bright and warm, and I was out early shovelling gravel on mum's drive. Needless to say I didn't go back inside and look at my phone until almost half past 8, by which time news of a Hudsonian Godwit in Somerset had been floating around the airwaves for an hour. Twitching never has been a sociable pastime and plans to meet family instantly went out the window. Four hours later and I was looking at this:

This meagre image hardly does the 'Hudwit' (to give its beautiful name an ugly abbreviation) any sort of justice. It really was excellent and although others had great flight views of the bird wheeling around with the Black-tailed Godwits, I was happy enough to see it wake up, walk around for a bit, kindly flap and then wing stretch to reveal the startling black underwings. There are loads of better shots here.

With news that it flew off a few hours later and didn't return, the decision to leave family behind was justified - in the mind of a twitcher, at least. Off to Azerbaijan on Sunday - hoping that's it for spring now, or at least until we return on May 17th.

Un-bridled Joy

Bridled Tern with a backdrop of auks - an Inner Farne special

This summer is starting to get a little crazy. The Pacific Swift was great - a real June mega that was supposed to cap off a decent spring (at least for ticks) and keep us pumped until September arrived. Then last week came the Needletail. Two monster swifts unleashed in ten days - had that really just happened?! Then, six days on, I'm sat in the office at work and Dom calmly relays a tweet to me "Bridled Tern... Farne Islands"!

Say what?!

This was getting too good to be true. Another bird out of the top drawer. Of course, no one had got near this particular bird yet and, after just twenty minutes, it had flown off. But we knew that a Bridled - not accessible to the masses in Britain since 1988 and thus a similar calibre of 'blocker' to both the recent swifts - was in Northumbrian waters. Some went that evening, and scored crippling views of the bird when it flew back in at around 18:30, roosting among the local Arctic Terns. Others, like myself, were consequently spurred in to action by the bird's reappearance and organized a boat out of Seahouses at 06:00 the following morning.

Superb overnight driving from Pegden had us in the harbour car park as first light was breaking. Rich tried to scan Inner Farne at extreme range while the rest of us just dozed. 06:00 came around soon enough, though, and we were quickly on our way towards the island with around 30 others. Plenty of familiar faces but some new ones too - plenty of youth out in force today.

Arrived on Inner Farne at 06:30. The bird was showing instantly, giving a fabulous mix of crippling flight views (to less than 10m) and more extended looks as it perched on rocks. It also serenaded us with its peculiar gull-like call on several occasions. Sadly, though, the party was soon over and the bird headed off out to sea at 06:45 - before I'd a) got some nice shots and b) been fully satisfied with watching it!

It was hard to complain, though. Could the bird have chosen a better location?! Embarrassed to say that I'd never been to the Farnes before. I'll definitely be returning! Arctic Terns were everywhere, with many feeding youngsters:

Puffins were also commplace, and seemed to enjoy perching on buildings:

Great views of Bamburgh Castle en route back to the mainland too. We docked at 08:00, got involved in a cooked breakfast in a local cafe and then began the drive south. More top driving from John despite the rest of us nodding off and I found myself back in London by a little before 16:00. If only they were all so straightforward!

Now, surely that is it for the summer! Or will there be a Red-necked Stint? Or something rarer?! I guess the way things seem to be going right now, you just never know.