Tern'd Out Nice Again!

A glorious forecast for Sunday, with me on a day off, with interwebbed knowledge of returning Terns at both Lodmore and Ferrybridge meant just one thing... Time to go to the seaside!! It turned out to be a right belter of a morning, with about 1400 pictures taken, and I've finally sorted through them. I've separated out the Tern ones for this thread, and will do a secondary "everything else" thread, or it will be mahoosive, so if you're sitting comfortably, I shall begin. Firstly, at Lodmore, the Common Terns:

The Black Headed Gulls were still in command of the fenced off breeding islands, with only a couple of Terns on them, but there was quite a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with food, although I didn't see any feeding going on

The Terns and Gulls seemed to alternate standing on a post, before flying off, or up, or down...

Ready.....

Steady.....

Go........

Flap!!!

HARDER!!!!

FASTER!!!!

Too late.... impending impact

Splosh!!

He's just winging it now!

Gotta love new fangled tracking!!

They may have been fewer than the gulls, but they were louder!!

And then on round to Ferrybridge. Apparently they weren't using the prepared nesting area yet, just utilising the ever present buoys

There was quite a lot of tandem flying... not sure if it was all about the food, or something more romantic!

And these are all heavily cropped. Later in the summer when there are youngsters to be fed, I'll head back down and hopefully get some more pics

Well don't just fly by....feed me!!!!

This is the only feeding I saw, but a chap I met at Lodmore (he did Ferrybridge first!) said there was feeding and mating going on, quite frequently

Thought I'd try arty-farty.... not sure I like the monochrome

And that was the end of Tern-fest.

Keep an eye out for a spectacle of surprises from the rest of the trip!!

Thanks for looking

Stay Safe All

edit: ps it wasn't til sorting these pics I realised how filthy my lens was lol