An Elegant Tern of events

July is the new October!

Well, in birding terms at least, this certainly seems to be the case with a number of truly rare birds currently available to twitch. Prince Albert of Bempton has put in a somewhat surprising reappearance and is wowing allcomers on the cliffs and sea around Bempton. On Sunday morning reports started to emerge of an orange billed Tern fraternising with the Sandwich Terns at the Tern colony at Cemlyn Bay on the north coast of Anglesey. This was quickly confirmed to be an Elegant Tern which, at least in a UK context, is an extremely rare bird with just 4 accepted records

The history of Elegant Terns in Europe is a fascinating one and amply demonstrates how mother nature can throw up some colossal surprises. It breeds on the Pacific coasts of the southern United States and Mexico and winters in Peru, Ecuador and Chile. I believe it was unknown in Europe prior to the 1970’s when reports started to emerge of a small number of birds physically resembling Elegant Terns in Spain and France. Given that Elegant Terns will readily hybridise with Sandwich Terns, there has always been some doubt as to the purity of these birds with small differences in bill colouration etc. being cited as damming evidence pointing at hybrids. Recently, however, an advanced DNA analysis technique known as multilocus barcoding has confirmed beyond doubt that a group of 3 birds in Spain are 100% pure Elegant Terns leading the British Ornithological Union to add them to their A list of birds reported in the UK.

In fact these three pure Elegant Terns have been seen in Spain every year from 2002–present, suggesting that any orange-billed Tern resembling Elegant Tern in Western Europe is most likely to be exactly that. Further evidence comes from known hybrids which look similar to Sandwich Tern with orange spots on the dark bill and a more extensive yellow bill rather than resembling Elegant Tern.

The Elegant Terns in eastern Spain have now breed successfully for ten years in a row, hence establishing a small but very viable self-sustaining colony. Why the original group of birds crossed either the Atlantic or Pacific to reach Spain is a mystery with some authors speculating that climate change or other pressures on their traditional breeding grounds may have driven their departure.

With me being master of ceremonies at a family BBQ, a twitch on Sunday was out of the question. Rather than travel on spec early on Monday, I decided to wait for the Tern to be reported. With hindsight this was plain dumb for two obvious reasons. Firstly, the UK roads are at their very worst from 06:00 onwards on Monday morning. Secondly, assuming the sun put in an appearance, I would arrive at peak heat haze time.

I got up at 06:00 and checked RBA and the bird had already been reported at 05:00, a little unusual for RBA which normally starts reporting at 07:00. I was out of the door before 07:00 and my traffic fears were soon confirmed as the overhead reports on the status of the M6 became gloomier and gloomier.

“M6 delays”

“M6 J10-11 Accident – 30 minute delays”

“M6 J10-11 lane closures 45 minute delays”

At which point I bit the bullet and diverted for the long and mainly single carriageway drive through central Wales to the north coast. After a long scenic but somewhat frustrating drive with one coffee stop I arrived at Cemlyn Bay on the north coast of Anglesey just after 11:30. This was my first visit to this site and I drove along a fairly rough track to a coastal car park from where I could see 30 or so birders peering intently at a lagoon some 500m away. After a quick walk across the shingle beach I asked a birder if the Tern was showing and, as is often the case, he very kindly let me have a look through his scope and there was the Elegant Tern in some vegetation surrounded by adult and juvenile Sandwich Terns. It was immediately obvious that he was displaying to the female Sandwich Terns bobbing his head up and down and pointing his large orange beak and punk style black head cap skywards but to no obvious avail. Given the very large number of chicks in various stages of development, I would guess that all possible partners were already spoken for. This behaviour carried on for some 60 minutes or so before something spooked the Terns and they took to the air on mass. When they settled back down the Elegant Tern could not be relocated.

Displaying to no avail!

Look at my nice fish!!

I was now faced with a choice. Stay and hope the Elegant Tern came back to give me some better views or drive to the Spurn peninsula in Yorkshire where an Oriental Turtle Dove was showing well. A quick calculation said I would end up driving for some 12 hours in total covering almost 700 miles and despite my little demon putting an appearance on my shoulder and encouraging me to go I decided to stay with the Elegant Tern. The intensive therapy is clearly working!!!

With no sign of the Elegant Tern for the next two hours, I amused myself watching the Sandwich Terns. They clearly were having a very successfully breeding season with chicks of all shapes and sizes seemingly everywhere noisily begging for food from parents coming back from fishing trips. Further entertainment came in the shape of two Roseate Terns sitting on rocks on the lagoon shore– a bird I have not seen for two years.

Sandwich Tern chick

After two hours everyone’s attention was starting to waiver when someone announced, “I think I have the Elegant” and sure enough there he was back in exactly the same spot but this time with a small fish in his beak with which he again gallantly tried and failed to attract female interest. He flew into full view on the shore and then up onto the nest boxes all the time continuing his forlorn display as the fish in his beak became shabbier and shabbier and so hence even less appealing. At one point a Peregrine flew over again putting up every Tern but they soon settled and the Elegant showed well again.