No sign of the osprey(s) when I reached the shore at about 0930 (I'd brought the scope this time) so I pressed on up the shore to the point. A few ducks and waders on the shore - about 60 teal, a few mallard, 4 wigeon. Curlew, 3 black-tailed godwit, 6 ringed plover, a few redshank, oystercatcher. Greenshank, dunlin and snipe all heard. I didn't try too hard as Bob and Annie will be counting everything at the weekend.
Then - looking at some gulls in the air over the Mount Pleasant shore I noticed that one was half the size of the rest. Through the bins it was obviously a tern - pointy wings, delicate flight, whitish underwing - but which? They settled on the mud - head on I could just make out black cap, white forehead, bill looked dark; sideways on, some darker grey on the mantle. At 800m (I've checked on the map), at x60 that was about it. Then the gulls all lifted, the tern with them: they settled on the water a short distance from where they'd been, the tern dip-fed among them, seemed about to settle on the water then took off, fed some more...then abruptly gained height and flew away WNW in the general direction of Benton Wood. Then I lost it. Never closer than 700m. In the picture it is facing the camera.
So much smaller than the black-headed gulls (and is that a common gull 2nd from right? I didn't notice it at the time) I thought marsh tern (also dip-feeding technique). I'm rusty on marsh terns, none since 2015 in Mallorca. Thoughts gratefully received. Probably too little to go on. But might appear somewhere else? That's a lesser black-back back left.
