Little Tern

Went in search of vagrant wader in North Wales yesterday but had gone with the tide by the time I arrived and wasn't seen since! Consoled myself with the Little Tern colony at Gronant. Really good year for them talking to a volunteer warden with 135 pairs. Some stunning Pyramidal Orchids too

Scotland

Hard work and long birding days paid off this year in Scotland. The weather was mixed some nice sunny warmish days interspersed with Arctic like conditions. We saw the Pied billed grebe at Leighton Moss on the way north. Black throated diver seen that evening at a local loch.
 Caperwatch was very disappointing and we were there for 3 early mornings but only had one brief glimpse of a male Capercaillie
Our first full day was spent going up the east coast. We connected with the long staying male Harlequin duck in Aberdeen and whilst there also saw a Long tailed tit building a nest. We then travelled to  the Ythan estuary. What a fantastic place this is with thousands of Eider and a single male King Eider. Also seen were Long tailed duck, Arctic tern, Sandwich tern, Common tern and Little tern. We finished the day at Portsoy and saw Great northern divers and a single White billed diver plus a Black guillemot.
The next day the weather was poor. We bagged 2 Crested tits at Loch Garten had a poor trip up Findhorn valley with a possible but  unconfirmed large raptor probably a Golden eagle plus good views of Peregrine. We went to base of Cairngorm where the only notable sighting was 2 Ring ouzel. We finished off with 2 Slavonian grebe at a local fishing lodge.
Our last day proved more fruitful and the weather was better too. We had good views of 1-2 Scottish Crossbill in Abernethy Forest and went to the top of Cairngorm where we had superb views of a pair of Ptarmigan. We finished off with good view of Goshawk at Dunkeld on the way back

Little Tern

Great views of the Little Terns at Gronant on the Dee estuary over the weekend.

Four species of tern at Audenshaw

I braved the showers at Audenshaw this lunchtime hoping some of the reported 150 arctic terns seen last night were still around. There were around a dozen Arctic Terns on the water intermittently flying up and feeding or being mobbed by gulls. Also present was a winter plumage Little Gull, 2 Little Terns and a fine looking summer plumage Black Tern. I also saw a couple of Swifts which are the first I have seen this year. No photos as they were all distance and the weather was just too wet for me to bring out any gear!