Elegant Tern – Cemlyn Lagoons National Nature Reserve, Anglesey, 19^th July 2021

Whilst we were on the Isle of May between Saturday the 3rd June and Saturday the 10th June 2017, news of an Elegant Tern on Hayling Island in Hampshire was relayed by Rare Bird Alert between the 7th and 9th June. When it relocated to Pagham Harbour in West Sussex on the day we left the Isle of May, Ken Shaw and I slowly began to get interested, especially when it was reported from there day after day.

So it was that we travelled south on Monday the 19th June 2017. Having seen Mandarin flying over the M6 in Lancashire and Red Kite, Great Spotted Woodpecker and Jay over the A34(T), we arrived in Church Norton at around 14:00 and devoted the next five hours or so to standing around in the hot sun not seeing the Elegant Tern (although seeing Little Gull, Mediterranean Gull and Little Tern and hearing Cetti’s Warbler and Cuckoo). We then decided to cut our losses and retreated to nearby Bognor Regis, where we stayed overnight in a bed and breakfast, to enable us to repeat our vigil the following day.

We were on site for 09:00 and remained until 13:30. We managed a similar supporting cast but by c.13:30 we were a tad demoralised and decided to make something of our trip by taking in the Surrey Heaths.... . We managed some specialist species, including Woodlark, Dartford Warbler, Tree Pipit and Silver-studded Blue, and generally enjoyed our change of scene. Until, that is, it emerged that the Elegant Tern had returned to Pagham Harbour in our absence..... . We did the same, but by the time we got there, it was notable only by its absence, despite another c.18:00 – 20:30 stint... . 

We returned to the bed and breakfast in Bognor Regis, and prepared for a proper vigil – no skulking off early – the next day, our third. We were there by c.08:30 and again forlornly scanned the island and the harbour for the next seven hours. It then emerged that the Elegant Tern had been relocated to Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour...... .

Although we gleaned that it was possible to get a ferry from Sandbanks to Brownsea Island, it was too late to do so that afternoon / evening. We opted to drive west to somewhere strategic - within striking distance, and find some accommodation for our third night in the deep south. This we did at a good pub in Ringwood, where we were able to console ourselves with images on social media of the object of our quest on Brownsea Island taken by a CCTV camera overlooking the Sandwich Tern colony. Surely it would be there in the morning? We were by c.08:30, having taken the ferry from Sandbanks and stumped up whatever it was we were charged to enter the island and yomped to the hides. However, it wasn’t, and it failed to show up, although at one frustrating stage Duncan Walbridge – sitting alongside Ken and I – briefly and distantly saw it over Poole Harbour. We remained for hours, but the tern was inelegant to the last.

Complete nightmare. Major dippage.

As such, I had some serious previous with Thalasseus elegans (despite happy memories of seeing it in Marin County, California).

So, when one ‘stuck’ at Cemlyn Lagoons in July 2021, I was interested, very interested, despite having ‘given up twitching’ (or not!) now I had reached 500 species for the UK...... .

It was first reported on Sunday the 4th July; appropriately for a species largely associated with the western coast of the United States (and Mexico) it turned up on Independence Day. In an instance of some sort of ‘available elegant tern déjà vu’, between Saturday the 3rd July and Saturday the 10th July, I was on the Isle of May as part of a work party attempting to rebuild the Arnott Trap.

Paul Pugh was staying with me at the time, having returned for work reasons from Belgium in the latter part of June. We’d had some great days dragonflying and damselflying at sites in Speyside, sites in the Beinn Eighe and Loch Maree area, and at Flanders Moss. Paul finally departed for Southport on Wednesday the 14th July, and guess what, by 18:48 on Friday the 16th July I was receiving back of the camera images of the Elegant Tern from him...... .

The pressure was now really on. All the more so, as, having been away on the work party for a week, and then dragonflying and damselflying with Paul, and then seeing him off in the next few days, I now had to get on with some serious drafting and preparing of material for the next Isle of May Bird Observatory newsletter. This I commenced to do in the remainder of the week once Paul had departed, and I continued to do so over the course of the weekend. By the Sunday evening I thought I had done as much as I could, and enjoyed an impromptu soiree outside with my ‘neighbours’ Asif and Louise from Lou-Lou’s ice-cream shop and Mark from The Cottage. This was very enjoyable, and involved an Indian carry-out and beer and wine alongside the Forth on a still, warm evening. Late that night, I both sorted out the debris from our eating and drinking, and sort out my belongings for an anticipated two-day trip away.

Perhaps as a result or the eating and drinking, or the warmth, or the anticipation, or a mixture of all three, I had a rubbish night’s sleep, and ended up getting up early to send e-mails about the newsletter to Alan Lauder providing all of the draft articles for his review and outlining what I still needed from him, and to David Steel outlining what I still needed from him. This was before 06:30 and I then returned to bed and achieved some good sleep. As a result, although there was positive news at 07:00, it wasn’t until some while later that I finally emerged and prepared to leave.

I was in the car for 09:30 and journeyed south on the very familiar A720, A702, M74 and M6 route, stopping at the BP petrol station in Biggar to fill-up. I knew it would be late afternoon when I arrived, but I didn’t know what I’d do in terms of stopping somewhere (or not?) after I had seen the bird / on the drive back. I supposed I would end up sleeping in the car. It was too late / not appropriate to contact people such Carol Carrington in Hale, where I could have stayed in normal circumstances, and I kicked myself for not looking out the key I had for Gary Hitchen’s place in Barrowford, as I could have stayed there under any circumstances.

However, as I drove south on the M74 a scheme emerged and so I ‘phoned Dave McAleavy. He answered neither his landline nor his mobile, but he did return my calls soon afterwards. I explained I was twitching the Elegant Tern at Cemlyn Lagoons and asked him whether he wanted picking up. Somewhat to my surprise he was up for it, so we agreed I should update him on my progress as I got closer to Parbold so that he could be ready to leave as soon as I arrived.

I continued south and briefly stopped off at Tebay Services from where I messaged Dave to suggest I would be about an hour. It was 12:19 by then. I waited until I crossed the Ribble and ‘phoned Dave to say I would be 20-25 minutes. I arrived at High Moor, Parbold at 13:20 and fantastically, Dave was ready to go.

Seeing him for the first time in ages meant that the rest of the M6, M56, A494, A55 journey went very quickly; in what seemed like no time we were approaching Holyhead and turning off towards Cemlyn Bay. The route didn’t come back to me just like that, and Dave used his Google Maps app. to navigate us there, albeit without his glasses. After some minor overshoot along the lanes, we eventually made it by 16:30.

For the first time on my visits to Cemlyn Lagoons, we inadvertently parked at the car-park at the eastern end of the storm beach. From here, once we had gathered up our belongings (except my pen and notebook!) we attempted to yomp along the beach to the viewpoint overlooking the tern colony island. The walk wasn’t too bad, but we both recollected yomping along Blakeney Point in other times.

On arrival there were just a handful of birders there plus the North Wales Wildlife Trust tern warden. I made some attempt to ask whether it was showing but this floundered and so I decided I wanted to find it for myself.

Armed with the intelligence from Paul’s visit this wasn’t hard, although the bird was partly obscured by the vegetation on the tern island. Broadly, this remained to be the case throughout our stay; the bird was generally showing partially at least in the same sort of area, or sometimes well or sometimes not at all, throughout. When it wasn’t showing it might have disappeared off out to sea to fish but only on one occasion did we actually see it flying around, although on a couple of others, it had returned from such forays as it had a fish with which it tried to entice the local sandvicensis babes, or not (Hint: try catching something half decent!).

So, it was all very leisurely as we watched for the next hour or so. I revelled in the relaxed atmosphere of a stonking new bird on a stunning successful twitch (given what had gone before) and alternately enjoyed watching it, chatting to Lorraine Jones, the very engaging tern warden, and helping arriving hobby birders (all the gear and no idea, I’ve retired so I am going to take up birding types) get on it, offering looks through my ‘scope, COVID-19 or no COVID-19. I was very much in my element.

Disgracefully, I’d omitted to put my notebook and pen in my pockets on getting my gear together at the car, and I was only able to scrounge paper (but no pen) from Lorraine, et al..

As such, any describing and sketching had to be done after the event, but all the same, here goes... .

The bird in question was a largish Thalasseus type tern, perhaps larger than Sandwich but smaller than Royal.

Besides its redunculous bright yellow bill, it had a shaggy-maned black cap which was ‘greying’ – signs it was moulting out of full breeding plumage. Otherwise, the bill was the standout feature – it was very long, slightly drooping and yellow or even orange-yellow. It also had black legs, and dark-centred primaries, which were evident both well resting and when flying. The white rump and tail were not noted (partly as it was only seen in flight briefly on one occasion).

It was clearly a male, as it frequently displayed (involving head-shaking and bill-pointing) and was seen offering fish to random female Sandwich Terns. Lorraine described how there had been three birds at the Sandwich Tern and Mediterranean Gull colony on the Sébastopol Polder Nature Reserve on Noirmoutier Island, situated in the department of Vendée in France. Here two birds had paired up and the other had departed, and seemingly then ended up at Cemlyn Lagoons. All very fortunate for me, as it turned out.

It later emerged that I saw it on exactly the same date as I had seen the Sooty Tern at Cemlyn Lagoons 16 years earlier.

We left by 17:45, and stopped off for food and drink supplies before we reached the A55. Dave then drove back from there to Parbold, where he treated me to an indulgent steak and kidney pudding, chips, mushy peas and gravy supper, washed down with a couple of cans of lager on the decking in the back garden, where I belatedly wrote up some notes.

Although shattered, whilst doing so, as I had earlier in the day, I mused over big questions like, “Why am I still twitching?” Was it because it is there or because it is in me or because I am addicted?

I also contemplated my revised goals now I was past 500. 520 – at one a year for 20 years or two a year for 10 – would seem reasonable. Ideally, but unlikely, I also pondered about getting to within 99 of the all-time British list total, but quickly put this to the back of my mind as the official list seems to grow faster than does mine nowadays.

Maybe, like my intended approach to work options nowadays I will just go for things that interest me rather than worrying too much about everything I am missing. One of the ‘delights’ of being on 500 plus is that there is much less to go for (although, conversely, there is less to go for nowadays!). It’s a nice ‘problem’ to have.

My rubbish ‘context’ image, showing the relevant part of the Cemlyn Lagoons tern colony on the 19^th July 2021.

Elegant Tern with Sandwich Tern, Cemlyn Lagoons, Anglesey, July 2021 (Photographs courtesy of Paul Pugh).