Am afraid to admit i went to cresswell today for a certain trio of geese
Some lad coming out of the hide reported a juv black tern on the sand. After close examination of it, i decided it was a winter or non breeding plumage arctic. It was a tricky bird. However the tail feathers were wrong for black tern, and it was flying wrong, it didnt try to feed during 90mins.also lacked the saddle...it think its called ?? the the little black line on the side of the breast. Bill was black and legs very dark red almost black, stumpy legs. However the back featehrs were too pale grey, although the wings were dark.
A difficult bird, but ive had birds like this at east chev in the past. This pic is very similar.....
http://www.pbase.com/crail_birder/image/82780883
It was very dark on the wing, but sadly i think it was just an arctic. (prob juv)
There were 3 little gulls there, and 3 avocets. One the gulls was an adult. It was also very confusing bird, as it had bugglegum pink legs, but was asleep, and I couldnt get more on it. The legs said bonapartes to me. I briefly saw the head, still had a dark hood, but it kept going back to sleep. The legs were def pink NOT red. At some point ti disappeared, cant recall what i was looking at, but it wasnt there when I left, although there were 40+ gullsin field to south of the pond.....it was very small, but compared to bhg i think bonapartes are small too, the juvs had flown off by then...tbh I didnt chk it properly wheni first saw it, was later on i saw the leg colour. Unfortunatley i cant recall how dark the wing tips were( Next timei see grp little gulls, i will pick through the leg colour more carefully!
Well made it interesting anyway )
