The bird seemed to like this distant buoy. In all the time I was scoping it, it left once and did two laps of the 'bite', catching a fish on it's second round but too distant and often out of sight to be sure of the rump colour.
Returned home from work, late afternoon, to messages about a Royal/West African Crested Tern off Cockwood. Initially seen from the Stuart Line boat and almost certainly the bird that was on the Axe a couple days ago. I shot down to Shelly Beach and soon picked it up, sat on a buoy, way off somewhere between Cockwood and the Warren. The light wasn't great but it didn't look too much like the chunky Royals I was watching in the summer. It wasn't too big a surprise then (though I'm certainly not suggesting I could have positively id'd it from that distance) to see that it's been reidentified as Lesser Crested Tern - a brand new bird for me! Hope it sticks around...
Sketch of the bird sat on it's chosen buoy. Remarkably this is the second record for the lower Exe. The first was before I did my very first twitch (the 1986 Berry Head Gyr) in 1985 I believe.
I popped down at about 2pm and got the same view and photo as you Matt! Also a ‘tick’ for me. I hope it sticks around a while, it would be nice to get better views.
ReplyDeleteHi Paul - glad you got it! If it hangs around there's at least a chance we'll get better views. I would imagine there's a chance it'll get on Cockle Sands if it lingers...
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