A rare North American visitor has attracted large crowds to the RSPB’s Pagham Harbour nature reserve this week. The aptly-named elegant tern is near threatened species, and is normally found in America or Mexico during the summer months; but this particular bird has been delighting visitors to the Church Norton area for several days.
“Our staff and volunteers have completed a lot of improvement works to tern habitats at the reserve in the last few years. As a result, we have increased our colonies of common and little terns, making this one of the best breeding grounds for the species in the South East. We were not expecting such an unusual visitor to be attracted to the site as a result though, and will be interested to see if it sticks around.” Roy Newnham, Visitor Experience Officer
The habitat restoration work undertaken at the RSPB reserve has been part of a wider UK effort to save threatened little and roseate tern populations from becoming extinct, and has been funded by the EU LIFE+ Nature Little Tern Recovery Project.