It was a good day to be volunteering on the DWT Brownsea reserve. Finally, it was a warm and sunny day, with a dry South Easterly wind. Albeit that wind produced a bit of mist in the morning, but not enough mist to cause a real problem to watch the lagoon. It was good to see the Sandwich Tern and Common Tern chicks were doing well, albeit I didn't take any photos. As I was scanning the lagoon, I saw a white Tern flying off the lagoon, that was too small to be a Sandwich Tern. It was always back on until I lost it. It looked interesting and I thought I had probably just had to let a Roseate Tern go. But there was every chance it would return after fishing.
I was in the new Lookout hide and visitor centre at lunchtime, when I had a couple of free minutes between visitors to have a scan of the Boomerang Island. This is generally the island where visiting, non-breeding Terns settle down among the resting local Terns. The small, whiter Tern had returned and it was looking good for a Roseate Tern. Whiter in colouration with an all-black bill. It was breast on, but finally it turned and I could see the whiter primaries and tail. That was good enough to confirm the identification.
This individual didn't have the normal long tail feathers. So, it was probably the same individual that Graham Armstrong had found on 7 Jun, but which hadn't been seen since. Not too surprising as Roseate Terns are generally one-day individuals. It was unusual that it was still around and presumably had just been overlooked in the intervening days.
