Well, all the excitement from yesterday was short lived as the Elegant Tern which roosted on the Brownsea Lagoon, and was still viewable on our webcam through the night, upped sticks and left around 5:00am never to be seen again…throughout the day anyway. A small flow of people made their way to Brownsea throughout the day in the hope the tern may arrive back, but sadly it never did. During its short stay on the Sandwich Tern islands it was receiving quite a bit of grief from the parent Sandwich Terns, so maybe it had just very quickly out-stayed its welcome? Other birds seen on the lagoon whilst waiting for the tern included the 5 Spoonbill, 1 early/late Common Sandpiper, 1 Dunlin, 2 Bar-tailed Godwit and several Black-tailed Godwit. At Arne one of the Osprey was on the perching post again and 2 were seen fishing out in the Wareham Channel late afternoon. On Lytchett Fields there were 2 Little Ringed Plover, 3 Green Sandpiper and 62 Black-tailed Godwit with the seasons first newly fledged Black-headed Gull seen in Lytchett Bay. When watching the Elegant Tern yesterday we were trying to get some film footage but frustratingly the battery ran out on our gear and we thought we’d walked away ‘footageless’. However, when uploading our memory card we were thrilled to find we had managed to get a relatively decent 15-second video of the bird canoodling with the Sarni Terns before our camera conked out. 

Elegant Tern – Brownsea Lagoon – 21/06/17

Elegant Tern roosting at night on  Brownsea Lagoon – 21&22/06/17