After Zoe and Adam heard about a strange, dark-bellied tern eating insects over the reedbed last Friday, they decided to go and have a closer look. At this time of year we get common terns passing through the reserve and so initial thoughts were that it was one of these graceful 'sea swallows', checking out the nesting potential provided by the newly refurbished tern raft. When they tracked down the bird though it was soon apparent that it was not a common tern, it didn't have the long tail streamers, it was catching insects, it looked smaller, it's bill was very dark and its belly was indeed dark grey. On their return to the office and after a brief discussion we decided that it was most probably a whiskered tern, a rare bird for the UK. The identification was later confirmed by Ian Lewington the County Bird Recorder and about 15 people managed to see this beautiful white-cheeked bird for a brief period before it flew off into the evening gloom. This individual seems to have been slightly over-enthusiastic with its flying, as it should really have stopped off with the rest of its whiskered friends in Spain or Southern France, rather than coming to munch on insects on a rainy Oxfordshire nature reserve. This was the first whiskered tern in Oxfordshire since the 70's, very exciting. (Photos below taken by Terry Sherlock).