Caspian Tern at Rudyard Reservoir Staffs

I woke early today and decided to make the trip up the M1/M6 to Staffs in the hope that last nights poor weather had kept the Caspian Tern pinned down. 180 miles in just under 3 hours and I'm pulling into the car park at the bottom of Bean Lane before 8am. (Yes I broke my soft 2 hour rule for this one)
I saw a couple of birders on the shore of the reservoir and walked towards them to find they had the bird in view on the mud at the end of the reservoir. I scoped it for a while before it flew up and started to fish on the far side. It caught a fish and then returned to the mud for about an hour and this was it's routine all morning.

Caspian Tern (distant record shot)

Distant shot of the bird resting with BH Gulls

Caspian Tern is the worlds largest Tern species and it can usually be found in North America, Asia and in Europe around the Baltic Sea area with American birds migrating to South America and the West Indies whilst the European/Asian birds tend to migrate to the tropics. It can be found as a resident in Africa and Australasia so who knows where this guy came from.
Britain averages about five records of Caspian Tern a year but rarely does one hang about in land.

I also paid a visit to Tittesworth Reservoir and I need to thank the guy from the sailing club  that made me a coffee (that's hospitality) and the guy that helped me find my first Willow Tit for two years.
Birds 263 and 264 for the year.

On another high note I added Lapwing to my garden list on Friday when a group of five flew over bringing the list of seen or heard (Little Owl being the only bird not seen but heard) from the garden up to 62