Coquet Island...............

                                                          13th June 2024

                                                    Coquet Island

                                                                          

Puffin.

I'm a bit behind on my blog posts so apologises for that, one of my trips out of Kent was a failed trip to Coquet Island to see the Bridled Tern.

This would have been a lifer for my birding companion RR. The last & only Bridled Tern i have seen was at Cemlyn Bay Anglesey in 1988. 

We made good progress and reached the small harbour in good time to board the small pleasure boat that runs Puffin tours around Coquet Island.

On route to the Island there were plenty of Puffins, Razorbills & Terns keeping us company.

Close views.

Once we reached Coquet Island there were 1000's of seabirds to greet us, frantic searching & scanning through endless Terns didn't produce the hoped for Bridled Tern however the seabird spectacle was worth the journey on it's own.

Common Terns

Feeding young.

We only had about 30-40 minutes viewing from the boat and despite our best efforts we never saw the Bridled Tern, However we did see a special breeding Tern, in fact we saw about 20 Roseate Terns in total.

Roseate Tern.

Back to the harbour we went , we decided to spend an hour looking from the shore scanning the island just in case but without success, we did see Eider, Goosander , Gannets , Fulmar , Artic & Roseate Terns though.

My first visit to Coquet Island and although we never saw the main target bird i was very impressed with the seabird spectacle we did see.