Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Caspian Tern, BLGP, South Lincs

This was one of the digiscoped record shots I took as a convincer before anyone else had arrived on the scene...

Arguably one of the best finds of my birding career, and certainly one of the rarest birds I have found near Peterborough. It was also a UK tick for me. Good numbers of birders from Lincolnshire and beyond came to see it during the day (Josh Jones even made it up from London!). The red ring and a mark on the underwing confirm that this was the same bird that had been a while in south Wales and had previously wandered up to Northants. Later, it was seen in West Yorkshire, then Norfolk. This was at what we now call the 'wader pit' of the Baston and Langtoft gravel pits complex. Its shallow pools and setting have since proved irresisitble to many scarce passage birds [I am writing in 2019], with at least three Temminck's Stints, multiple Knots, Little Stints, Turnstones and Sanderlings, plus good numbers of Black Tern, Little Gull and Sandwich Terns.

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