I love a lot of things; seabirds, cetaceans, Northumberland, photography and, of course, Sarah 🙂
When news broke yesterday that a Bridled Tern had been discovered roosting near the jetty on Inner Farne I immediately began wondering whether it would hang around until today and, if it did, how could I fit a visit to Inner Farne into my schedule, between office work this morning and a meeting with the Northumberland Wildlife Trust this afternoon? After getting a few of my admin tasks out of the way first thing, a quick ‘phone call to Billy Shiel’s booking office secured my place on a sailing at 10:00. The drive north on the A1 was plagued by the ever-present worry that accompanies a twitch – would the bird still be there?
Arriving at Seahouses harbour in good time for the sailing I was chatting to William Shiel when he mentioned that he was about to send a boat across to the islands to collect one of his crew…and would I like to go across on that one? So, I had the extraordinary experience of being the only passenger on Glad Tidings IV and was soon watching the tern, although it was quite distant. The 10:00 boat arrived and the birders on it had a view of the bird for about five seconds before it flew off. At about 11:00 I heard the bird calling, but it couldn’t be located anywhere in the roost. Then, half an hour later, Phil found it roosting on the rocks just below a group of Puffins. As boats arrived and collected their passengers, I was eventually left on the island with two other birders and a few of the National Trust Rangers.
We could see our boat heading across Staple Sound from the outer islands then, the stuff of dreams; the roosting terns lifted and the Bridled Tern flew past us, then back, then past us, then towards us…then settled on the rocks no more than 30′ away 🙂
With excellent help from William and his skippers, the very accommodating Farne Islands rangers who were ‘enjoying’ the unusual experience of visitors on Inner Farne in a morning, and the remarkably obliging Bridled Tern posing in front of my camera, I headed back down the A1 for my meeting full of enthusiasm…not that I’m ever anything other than enthusiastic when meeting with NWT of course 😉