An Arctic Tern at Dungeness

13th November 2022

After a  successful morning at Port Lympne with the juvenile Sabine's Gull, time to move on to Dungeness. The Grey Phalarope had moved on, so decided to do a bit of sea-watching from the fishing boats. We had only just arrived at the shore-line after a long trudge across the shingle when a Kittiwake flew past. Wish it had given us a bit more warning.

It was fairly quiet otherwise with just a handful of Gannets passing through a long way out, and just one large flock of Brent Geese heading south

The most common birds on the sea were Great Crested Grebes, a familiar sight here.

But then the biggest surprise was the appearance of a tern which flew past quite close to the shore on a couple of occasions. We found out that two Arctic Terns were in the area, an adult and a juvenile. The bird had all the hallmarks of an Arctic Tern apart from the bill which was still showing some red and would normally be black at this time of year.

This photo shows some brown on the lesser and median coverts suggesting this was the juvenile bird. It is also noticeable that it has a small growth on the top of its upper mandible.

Well that was a surprise and I wonder what it was doing here in the middle of November.