Devil Birder

After several weeks of not being able to go for one reason or another, this was the weekend I managed to get down to Dunge for the Roseate Terns that have been hanging around at The Patch all summer. My two main year-listing rivals had already bagged them so I was determined to make the best of it and snatch them back (and complete my set of breeding Terns for my British life list, also having 2 rarities- White-winged Black and Caspian). Also, I was hoping to perhaps get a Shearwater (Manx or Balearic would do, or preferably both) or Skua as a bonus.

We arrived in the early afternoon and I hadn't walked more than 200 metres towards the bund when my pager came through with a message saying there was both Pec and Curlew Sand at the ARC, ran back to the car and hitched a lift round there, making my way to the Hanson Hide. Before long, I was onto the Pectoral Sandpiper, an adult which showed well- useful year tick. There was also about 7 Common Sandpipers, c.10 Little Ringed Plovers and a handful of Dunlin. No sign of the Curlew Sand though, apparently it flew off (in the direction of the scrape at the east end of the ARC, I gathered from a birder's gesticulations) so, after getting fed up of being in a crampt hide of people constantly calling Lapwings and Dunlin as the Pec, I headed up there. After a few quick scans nothing more than a Common Sand, an LRP, a Ringed Plover and a couple of Oystercatchers were picked up. I headed back to the sea, where I was going before I was so conveniently interrupted.

Here I came across two birders who brought positive news of the Roseates as they headed back to their cars; they were showing well on the beach with a Black Tern...brilliant! I snuck up and around the Tern flock to get the best angle and distance using the bund. I got to a good spot and slowly emerged over the top, pretty much expecting the Terns to go up (I've found that the Gulls here flush at the slightest encouragement) but to my surprise they were pretty tame and didn't mind me moving around on top, trying to find a comfortable position to watch them from.

Now all I had to do was scan through around 200 terns, 100 perched, half of them sleeping and the other 100 flying in a confusing bundled swarm over the patch, while a chilly, strong wind was pushing my view around. Not the easiest of tasks but I went ahead with it. Eventually I took the scope off the tripod, made a bed for it in the shingle and lay down to scan through them, this was pretty stable.

I scanned through the loafing Terns several times with no luck before turning my eye to those feeding; in no time I picked up the adult Black Tern (starting to go white around the forehead) but the Roseates still failed to show up. I desperately scanned the two flocks of loafers and the feeding swarm alternately for two and a half hours, with several false alarms (mainly sleeping pale-primaried birds before they showed their bill) before I picked up a dark-billed, long-tailed Tern with little black on the primaries on the far side of the more distant flock- score! I had finally found my first Roseate Tern! It didn't stay long and I lost it shortly after it flew off to feed so I turned my attentions back to the Black Tern that had now settled fairly close to me. These were easily my best views of this species yet, and this was a year tick.

Other birds seen while scanning through the Terns were few and far between but a juvenile Med Gull was loafing with the Black-headeds and I got onto a handful of distant, passing Gannets.

I had another attempt at the secret London Nightjars with Kevin McManus the previous night, at the right place this time but we again had no luck (1 singing Yellowhammer was the best bird), which was a shame seeing as we had to spend about 5 hours in Sutton, some of which involved sleeping through Harry Potter) in order to go for them (long story!). In Sutton there were 2 Peregrines. At Beddington earlier we saw a Bullfinch (fairly unusual for the farm, especially at this time of year), 8 Green Sandpipers and a Common Sandpiper.