The 29th August won’t be forgotten in a hurry! Local birders were treated to an unprecedented arrival of terns involving all 6 of the regular British species! Quite how many there were is open to question but the estuary “had clouds of them” according to one observer with up to 500 roosting in Ryan’s Field at one time. Figures of 2400 Common, 30 Arctic, 3 Roseate, 65 Sandwich, 3 Little and 16 Black Terns have been quoted. Quite why so many were present remains a mystery but may have been associated with a large influx in whitebait fish around the Cornwall coastline. Our beach at Porth Kidney is always popular with terns in autumn but nobody could remember seeing anything like this before.
By David Flumm, Site Manager