Forster's tern, Skippool Creek

Two days ago a Forster's tern was seen flying south along the coast at Morecombe but it didn't stop and was not subsequently relocated.  However, at 16:45 today it was found roosting on a sandbar in the River Wyre at Skippool Creek, and it set in motion a mini twitch reminiscent of the African royal tern at Llandudno in 2009! 

By 17:15 we were heading north on the M6, not completely convinced that the bird would stay because our journey would take 55 minutes in which time anything could happen, but at least the tide was dropping so the sandbar would still be there when we arrived, and we adopted the attitude "if you don't try, you don't see". We were also helped by the clocks going forward by an hour last night which gave us one hours extra daylight this evening.

Ten minutes into the journey we received the negative news that we had expected, the bird had flown north until lost to view. We'd barely started our journey and it would have been very easy to turn back and spend the evening watching telly, but we decided to keep going. After all, if the sandbar was still there, then there was a decent chance that the bird was just fishing and it may return at some point.

For the next 45 minutes we continued north, but there were no further updates, either negative or positive. Finally, at the very moment we pulled onto the car park, another update - the tern was back on the sandbar. Hastily we got our stuff out of the boot and headed over to a small group of birders who were clearly watching the bird.

It was sitting on a small sandbar close to a group of gulls at a distance of about 250m and instantly identifiable as Forster's tern, with it's black mask, black bill and grey crown. The light was perfect and we watched the bird for about 10 minutes until finally it flew up and past us and headed for Shard Bridge where it started fishing about 1km to the south of where we were standing.

Fortunately it very soon flew back towards us and at times was as close as 100m, allowing us some excellent views. 

After watching it for 45 minutes we decided it was time to head home, and we left Skippool Creek at about 19:00. Apparently at around 19:30 the bird flew high to the south east and at the time of writing has not been seen again in Lancashire. This was my second Forster's tern in the UK, the first was at Point of Ayr, Clwyd in 1984 with the same bird at Beddmanoch Bay and later Penmon Point, Anglesey in 1986.

Edit 31/03/2025: there has been a Forster's tern at Poole Harbour in Dorset for the past two summers, and that bird returned just a few days ago on 23rd March for it's third year and seemed set for another prolonged stay. However, on 25th March it went missing and was not seen again until today when it reappeared at its favoured location of Brownsea Island. All of the Lancashire sightings of the tern have been within the period that the bird was missing from Dorset, and incredibly from plumage details it seems that they are one and the same bird. It flew high to the south east from Skippool Creek at 19:30 yesterday and was seen again on Brownsea Island at 11:30 today, an overland journey of around 364km/230 miles, presumably most of which was at night! How the bird was able to navigate back to Poole harbour and why it left in the first place is a mystery I suspect we'll never solve.

Shard Bridge.