Elegant Tern at Church Norton

I had planned to drive down to Church Norton Saturday after work but the curse of back pain put paid to that plan so after a poor nights sleep I picked up the Jims and headed down to Church Norton this morning in hope that the Elegant Tern would have remained.
We pulled into the car park at the church and walked the short path to the beach to meet the thirty or so birders already on site at 7am. The bird had been seen and before long flew up from the grassy bank of the Tern colony and flew around for about an hour dropping back into the grass several times in the same spot suggesting territory or maybe even breeding activity?

Poor record shot as it flew off to feed.

part of the twitch

At about 8.10am it dropped onto the mud giving great scope views for a few seconds before heading off south west at pace not to return until after we'd left a couple of hours later.

The birds credentials are believed to be proven by DNA testing in France and as such it will hopefully jump straight onto the British list. (see here)

By the time we left the twitch had increased to c300 birders.

I heard a Lesser Whitethroat for another year tick and picked up good views of both Little and Sandwich Tern. A pair of Peregrine entertained us too chasing the local pigeons without success.
Jimmy picked up a Little Gull whilst I missed it but I did see a Chidling Pink although failed to fully appreciate it if I'm honest.

Year list now 239 and the life list now 383.