Caspian Tern at Gibraltar Point

Just got back from a day on the east coast. We set out at 6am in the direction of Titchwell on the North Norfolk coast in the hope that the great knot which had been there for about 4 days would be present again after going AWOL yesterday evening, with the back up plan being that we would divert to Gibraltar Point near Skegness if no news or negative news was received by the time we got to the Boston roundabout on the A17.

At 7:15am we were still a good two and a half hours drive from Titchwell when we received news that the bird was again present on Titchwell beach so Gibraltar Point was forgotten and we headed for Norfolk. Unfortunately we then got news that the bird had disappeared again at about 7:30am. However, at least it was still in the area so we pressed on undettered and confident that we would see the bird. How wrong we were. The bird was not seen again all day up to the time of writing. A couple of year ticks in the form of red-crested pochard and spotted redshank plus at least 250 avocets and an adult Mediterranean gull were scant consolation, and at 11:30am, just over 90 minutes after arriving but 4 hours since the bird was last seen, we decided to abandon Norfolk and get to Gibraltar Point to try to salvage something from the day.

Two hours later we were watching a stunning Caspian tern on Tennyson Sands at Gib Point, one of two birds which have been here for 5 days. Well worth the effort. It was a 440 mile round trip, which is exactly half what Ray did last Saturday, so not too bad really!

Year: 233 (Caspian tern, spotted redshank, red-crested pochard & little bittern (last week))