Well this week has definitely been quiet. Unfortunately I haven't been out too much but John and Steve have been visiting on various days. On Tuesday lunch time John phoned me to say he had a 2CY tern at the reservoir and Steve was there and saw it too. It was awful weather and they were struggling to see any detail of the birds plumage and although Steve had mentioned Arctic Tern, the general consensus was that it was a Common Tern. It stayed the day and actually into Wednesday too, when John saw it in the evening. It was dry then and John managed to get the photos below. After John had posted them on twitter, there was a report of a 2CY Arctic Tern put out by a popular bird news service. We were surprised and a little confused.
I asked for more information and confirmation of the identification and they kindly came back to me with the following. '
The amount of black around the eye is beyond what a Common Tern would show, and, more importantly, all the primaries are of the same age. A Common Tern would have two generations of primaries at this time of year, having moulted the inners and retained the worn outers.'
Very informative and a great record for the reservoir.
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