Arriving home at 6pm on the 14th from having visited Flavourfest in Plymouth City Centre (a food festival where you can sample lots of goodies, eat nice food and spend far too much money on luxury consumables you wouldn't normally buy), and on checking the internet a report of 3 black terns in Plymouth Sound that morning was intriguing but not unsurprising given the awful weather of the previous 2 days. A bit more searching and a report of a juvenile white winged black tern at Exminster Marsh was even more exciting and so my mind was made up as to where to visit the next day.
I arrived at Exminster at 9:30 and headed off straight away to the canal where the bird had been seen the previous day. It was sunny but cool and breezey and I was a little trepidatious as marsh terns can be fickle things - here today, gone tomorrow. I could see a gaggle of birders along the canal side intently watching something but couldn't see what they were looking at due to the luxuriant canal side vegetation and the distance and when I arrived at their position I was informed that the tern had just flown over to the estuary and out of sight - bugger! - but at least it was still present.
I walked down to the Turf Hotel where I would be able to scan the estuary, seeing a flyover juvenile Mediterranean gull along the way and disturbing a kingfisher from the shoreline on arrival.The tide was high and a large flock of black headed gulls were resting on the water and after a bit of searching I found the white winged black tern hawking over them - result! After a few minutes it flew back over to the canal and so I headed back there too to try and get some better views. I quickly refound it and had some lovely views as it hawked back and forth over the water, sometimes flying quite close to where I stood and occasionally flying back over to the estuary. A canoeist on the canal must have had some amazing views as the tern hawked around his canoe, no doubt attracted to the insects his paddle was disturbing.
It was a smart looking bird, almost little gull like, and was a joy to watch although it never stopped flying around in the 2 and a half hours I was there. A white rump, pale upperwings, a dark saddle and no breast pegs were easily noted and I was pleased to finally see my second UK lifer of the year (my first was the squacco heron at Beesands in May, another white winged bird). I even managed to get a few decentish photos of it too as it flew past.
White Winged Black Tern
White Winged Black Tern
White Winged Black Tern
White Winged Black Tern
White Winged Black Tern
White Winged Black Tern
Otherwise it was pretty quiet on the Marsh. A little grebe, a female tufted duck and an eclipse male gadwall were on the lagoon with eclipse teal and mallard but I couldn't find the reported garganey amongst them. Reed bunting was heard, a kestrel flew over and a kingfisher gave some nice views fishing from reeds overhanging the canal. A few dragonflies dashed past too quickly to properly ID and red admiral, holly blue, small tortoiseshell, large white and gatekeeper were also noted.
As it was quiet I decided to head off home instead of having a wander around but it had been a very pleasent morning and not too twitchy although more birders were arriving as I left.
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