Elegant Tern, Chough & Black-necked Grebe in Cheshire & Anglesey

Soon after the Albatross experience, a moment of madness consumed me once again on 22nd July as I headed off on another mega twitch. I chose to take my time on this occasion and stopped off at Lapwing Hall Lake near Knutsford, Cheshire, where I got some nice shots of summer-plumages Black-necked Grebe - not an easy bird to track down. (Indeed, I think these my have been my first and only shots of this species in breeding plumage.)

I then went on to Anglesey and to the local pub in Rossgoch when I arrived, hoping to get the mega the next morning. After a poor night's sleep in the B&B I drove to Cemlyn Bay (23rd July) just a few miles away and despite me seeing plenty of terns, the bird in question refused to show, and I was wondering whether I'd made an error of judgement by not going immediately to the site when I arrived the night before. Anyway, to cut a long story short, it did show - and appeared out of nowhere - at around 9.30am: a beautiful Elegant Tern all the way from America! Having driven all this way, I felt a huge sense of relief. And having appeared, it proceeded to show wonderfully well - displaying to the local Sandwich Terns, remaining faithful to a concrete block in the middle of the largest island and occasionally flying around. Getting the perfect shot of the bird was hard: the heat haze worsened over time and whenever the bird flew, it was usually spooked by a raptor or something - along with the whole flock of other terns, which made locating it in the sky virtually impossible. Anyway, I did get some pretty nice shots eventually.

When the rarity wasn't showing, there was plenty to absorb my attention: a couple of Black Guillemots on the sea, plenty of Arctic, Common and Sandwich Terns, even a small flock of Dunlin on the beach... A Peregrine flew over... but sadly, no Roseate Tern on this occasion. Further afield, at South Stack, I caught up with Chough (17 birds in the horse field on the approach road!), a species I hadn't seen for a while.