On the afternoon of Wednesday the 3rd of December a rare tern was discovered and photographed on the Exe Estuary at Dawlish Warren in Devon. Initially identified as a Royal Tern it was subsequently re-identified later that same day from photos as a mega rare Lesser Crested Tern of which only ten have ever been recorded in Britain and the last seen was all of twenty years ago when one frequented the Norfolk and Suffolk coast from the 16th to the 21st of July 2005.
Lesser Crested Terns are similar in size to a Sandwich Tern but have an orange bill and their rump and tail are grey rather than white. They breed in sub tropical parts of the world from the Red Sea across the Indian Ocean to the western Pacific and Australia and there is a significant population on the southern coast of the Mediterranean, on two islands off Libya. In winter they migrate to the coast of West Africa.
They are a rare vagrant to Europe but have occasionally bred in Italy, Spain, France and England.The last time this happened in England involved a celebrated female that returned for 14 years to a Sandwich Tern colony on the Farne Islands from 1984-1997 and, paired with a Sandwich Tern raised several hybrid young over a number of years.
Many birders went to see this bird but this was before my time of twitching.
Lesser Crested Tern has been a notable absentee from my British List so it was imperative that I made the effort to go and see this individual as soon as possible. It's true identity was established too late for me to go on Wednesday so I resolved to travel to Dawlish first thing on Thursday.
I rang Graham J who I knew also needed it and we arranged to rendezvous in Bristol at 5am on Thursday morning as Graham would be coming from near Heathrow and me from northwest Oxfordshire.
All went to plan and at 5.15 am I transferred to Graham's car, leaving my car in a secluded residential road on the outskirts of Bristol.Our early start was in order to arrive in Dawlish before dawn so we had the best chance of seeing the tern if it had roosted in the estuary.
One stop for coffee and surviving an unforecasted torrential downpour on the motorway found us driving into a partially flooded Dawlish Warren Seaward car park with a number of other presumably birder's cars already parked there. It was 6.30 am and still dark.
Getting our gear together we set off on the mile walk to the hide which was the location of choice to look out over the estuary to try and locate the tern.At first there was an obvious track but this soon ran out and then I managed to lose sight of Graham and was on my own in semi darkness getting lost amongst the dunes, sandbanks and marram grass, trying to follow trails that went nowhere but eventually from the top of the dunes I could see the hide in the distance and set an uncertain course towards it.
I found Graham already there and joined him at the end of a line of birders outside the hide all staring steadfastly out at a bleak and cold Exe Estuary.
Any sign of the tern Graham?
Nothing yet.
Five minutes later came a shout from down the line.
I have got a tern flying in. I think it's the Lesser Crested.
A brief moment of silence and then came the words everyone wanted to hear
Yes it's definitely the bird.
For once there was no panic as the number of craft and mooring buoys in the estuary made it easy to give directions as to where the tern was and everyone got onto it fairly easily as it flew back and fore fishing. It was as easy and as quick as that and the time was just before 8am.
The tern caught a fish which it tossed into the air and swallowed whilst still flying and then glided down to settle on a large yellow buoy some way off from where we were standing. I tried a couple of shots with the camera but the dull light and distance ensured the result was far from memorable.
The tern looked set to remain for some time on its perch and actually went to sleep.There is only so long one can look at an immobile tern, even one as rare as this one and not feel one's interest begin to wane. I scoped the shore line for other birds and found Dark bellied Brent Geese and Shelducks at the water's edge whilst Bar tailed Godwits, Oystercatchers, Curlews, Redshanks, Turnstones, Dunlins and even a single Knot probed the mud being exposed by the falling tide.
When we were driving down to Dawlish we had two objectives; to see the tern which was now achieved and the other to get some reasonable photos of it which was not going to happen unless we could get closer to the bird. The only way to do this would be via a boat but where to find such a thing?
We thought we had found the answer when via the internet we discovered Stuart Line Cruises based in Exmouth on the other side of the estuary that operate twice daily, hour long tours of the Exe Estuary.The first sailing was at 11am so I booked myself and Graham on it and a number of our fellow birders did likewise.
We all hoped this would get us nearer to the tern but unfortunately we were to learn that the tour was aimed more at general tourists and not specifically for birders and frankly it turned out to be a waste of time and money. Undeterred we spoke with some local birders shortly before we returned to the quay at Exmouth and asked if they knew of anyone with a small boat we could charter to take us out to the tern.
They directed us to Tom who was a birder and also on the boat. He owned a small RIB and we put our suggestion to him and being a birder and also keen as us to get a good photo of the tern was up for it. He lived in Exmouth and suggested after we landed that we go to a local cafe for a late breakfast and he would return in an hour with his RIB and we could set off from the slipway to try our luck with the tern.
An hour later we met up and Tom prepared the RIB for sea and in no time at all we were heading for the moored craft and marker buoys we had seen from the shore earlier this morning.We were also fortunate with the weather which was benign with little wind and bright sunshine.
We cruised around the area the tern had been seen in but there was no sign of it.The last report was of it being perched on a mudbank but despite constantly scanning we could not see anything that looked like a tern. Rather than endlessly cruising about we moored the RIB to a buoy and waited for the tern to fly when it would become visible and we would know where it was.Wherever it was on its mudbank it was hidden but with the rising tide it would surely be pushed off and fly and that would be our chance.
For half an hour there was no sign of the tern as the tide slowly covered the mud and sand.
Then Graham gave a shout
There it is - its flying left!
Indeed it was. Flying along the distant shoreline and then above and around the moored boats. It dived and caught a fish which it consumed on the wing before repeating its behaviour of earlier this morning by landing on another yellow buoy. This was perfect as we now knew where it was, could keep an eye on it and best of all it probably would remain for quite some time perched on the buoy which would give us the opportunity to move closer to get some images.
Tom slowly and carefully manouevred the RIB closer but not so close that the tern would become alarmed.We took as many images of it as we wanted whilst the tern remained contentedly perched on the buoy.
However it could still go wrong but our luck held and the tern flew towards us, passing close and headed further up the estuary.
We were not going to get better than this and at 4pm we made our way back to the slipway and assisted Tom in dragging the RIB up the slipway.
At just after 4pm we said farewell to Tom and headed for Bristol.
I was now feeling tired, very tired but nothing could dampen my spirits at having seen the Lesser Crested Tern so well and added another species to my British List (541).
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