It was the bird’s distinctive movement that made me take a second look. Small and pale, with narrow, swept-back wings and a buoyant flight – reminding me, in the words of the writer Simon Barnes, of a gull that’s died and gone to heaven.
A glance through my binoculars, and its black crown, white forehead, and custard-yellow bill confirmed that it was a little tern – the smallest of its family, and only the third individual I had ever seen in Somerset.
The bird paused momentarily in mid-air, twisted its wings, and plunged into the murky waters of the River Parrett, emerging with a small fish, before flying south upriver and out of sight.
It had already been a rewarding morning, with a steady stream of swallows and sand martins, also heading south. A good selection of other early autumn passage migrants, too: two common sandpipers bobbing on the mud beside the sluice, and at least half a dozen wheatears, flashing their white rumps as they flitted up on to a row of fenceposts, revealed by the receding tide.
Best of all, a score of yellow wagtails – not the canary-coloured adults but rather drab-looking juveniles – bouncing around on the grassy area alongside the sea wall. In just a few weeks, they will be feeding alongside big game in sub-Saharan Africa; also the winter destination of the little tern.
