TERN U-TURN

The patch this morning was being hammered by the locals once again and as per usual the early 'birders' had scored with the early birds. Gregsy (aka Insomniac) had already seen a juv Med Gull and more importantly 2 fly over Crossbills before yours truly had risen.
Venturing out with pooch and wifey in tow I joined Vern and Mr T in the Old Hide to grill an educational Tern roosting with the Lapwings and BH Gulls on Neumann's North Island. Then again later with Robbo and exBT Dave et al.

Photo of the tern sp through exBT's scope...either Common or Arctic yes?.. but which one?
I initially plumped for Common due to the bill colour, length and shape. I always like to see Terns bills b4 I make a guess. Trouble is though the t'other bits didn't seem to fit. Short legs, dark grey mantle and wings plus a greyish wash to the underparts pointed to Arctic and the bill was all red(ish). So we Vern, Mr T, Robbo, exBT Dave and I convinced ourselves it was thus an Arctic.
Unfortunately we over looked the primary projection beyond the shorter tail seen well later by Greg (who else). Its a Common Tern after all.
Just to the right of the Tern was the juvenile Med Gull thankfully a bit easier to ID...

below some video footage of the above, I must warn you the language is rather industrial (turn it up for a laugh)...

Nothing much else doing Patch wise apart from Gregsy getting worried his Patch World Record Year List (151) is in jeopardy from the Greg steam roller. 'My Precious' I fear will be Hartford bound just after Christmas, still theres always next year what!!


Insect wise I've been to busy working and Batting (the vampire sort not cricket) and all I've got to show for this past week is a nice Speckled Wood from up in Cumbria somewhere.

a distant shot of one of three Hobbys seen at Whixhall Moss in a failed attempt to get White-faced Darter (once again)...

and even more distant views of The Isle of Man from Cumbria...

ttfn