A very exciting morning birding the patch today when I found this adult Caspian Tern feeding at high tide over Big Marsh North. I had pretty much finished a pleasant morning's birding around the Otter Estuary, when I stopped to chat to fellow birder Simon Bates. Whilst chatting I scanned the water only to see this unmistakable carrot-bill of a tern flying over the top end of the marsh and I shouted out some expletives to Simon! We then both watched it as it actively fed over the water and it caught a fish. It only stayed feeding for around 25 minutes, but really pleased a few locals managed to see it before it headed south out of the estuary at around 11.15am.
It appears to be the 7th record for Devon (Thanks to Mark Bailey for the stats as always!) and more importantly it is a 1st for the Otter Estuary. Interestingly, it is clearly unringed and so a different bird to the one seen on the Exe in mid July (this bird was colour-ringed). It's only the 2nd one I have seen in Devon when friend Matt Knott found one on the Exe on 5th August 2014.
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