Hit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5fAWpv_axs 

Everything seemed to crank up after half-term and free time seemed to slip away quickly.  However there were some dirty hits of rare birds and twitchery that were too good to miss.  Adding to the Mediterranean flavour of the Yorkshire twitch a Roller pitched up at the end of June not far out of the Ely10 at Icklingham on the edge of the Brecks.  It took 5 days before I could squeeze in an after work visit but it was well worth it.  The flambouyant predator doing it's huge Shrikey thing from roadside wires.

A surprise came in the form of the return of a Black-browed Albatross to the cliffs at Bempton.  With the returning North Sea BB Albatross mauled and hacked by a flock of 9 Sea Eagles off the Danish coast earlier in the spring there was a general malaise about the prospects of an Albatross making it onto the cliffs of the Great White Cape again.  Seems there's been a second bird out there all along and there was jubilation as it returned and settled into some level of predictability.  During the late 80's as youngsters based in York we always fancifully dreamed, on our YOC trips to Bempton, that an Albatross would settle in the growing Gannetry - as one had done at Bass Rock from 1967 and then on Shetland from 1972 to 1995.  

Nonchalant to seafolk, Bass Rock hosted Albie from 1967 - 69

A pre-dawn drive led to a 5am arrival at the clifftop where within minutes I had my eyes on this iconic bird, although I have seen many Albatross on pelagics  off New Zealand and Australia, this was different and a tremendous buzz.  

With the rest of the day stretched ahead of me and one childhood dream fulfilled I started to hatch another plan.  During the early 90's I made several unsuccessful attempts to see Elsie, the returning Lesser Crested Tern, on the Farne Islands and Yorkshire coast.  Subsequently we found our own Elsie at the salt pans near Roquetas De Mar on a package holiday to Spain and another more recently in Morocco but I still had a yearning to see a yellow billed tern doing it's thing in a Sandwich Tern colony.  I'd been a bit surprised to miss the breeding Elegant Terns at Nourmoutier in France during a summer holiday a few years ago, so as I drove down the M18 I challenged myself to drive past the A1 turn off and head west on the M62.  3 hrs later I pulled into the car park at Cemlyn Bay on Anglesey hopeful of putting another youthful fancy to bed.  I loved Cemlyn Bay - a pair of Black Guillemot bobbed around in the moon shaped bay and Chough charred over head.  Walking the shingle the cacophony of the tern colony heightened and I was pleased to see that the nesting island was very close - any views I had of the summering Elegant Tern would be epic.  An indeed they were.