Late on Saturday afternoon (27/04) I popped up for a look to see if the strong SW wind had dropped in anything. There was quite a good sprinkling of Arctic Terns around the country and so it was well worth a cheeky look.
I was in luck, with a beaut of an Arctic Tern cruising around, in the company of a Common Tern too. I watched them for ages - a great chance to fully appreciate the differences between what are two regularly confused species. Colin also found a Wheatear and after a while it popped up for me on the perimeter fence briefly - smart bird! A male LRP & a brief Yellow Wag, completed a very decent visit!
The next day, (Sunday 28/04) I decided I'd have a look a bit later on in the day, however this plan went out the window as mid morning, local regular Clive discovered a Sandwich Tern, a bird I've been eager to see on patch for sometime. Panic! I jumped out the shower, got ready in record time, hopped in the car and made in down to the res! Thankfully, unlike most inland Sarnies, the bird hung around and in fact stayed for the whole day, despite lots of sailing going on at the res.
It showed amazingly well, at times flying low along the near shore right in front of us, following the reservoir perimeter. It also would fly up pretty high, giving the impression it was leaving, before coming back down again. It caught a couple of fish while I was there and once the sailing had ended, sat on one of the buoys for a rest. A very memorable patch encounter!
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