It was first spotted on Monday morning, 24 August, and, fortunately, remained for at least a couple of days (I haven’t heard whether the bird is still there today), long enough for me to catch the train to north Cardiff’s Llanishen Reservoir Tuesday morning for a look.

The bird? A stunning little juvenile Black tern (Chlidonias niger), a bird that only rarely breeds in the UK and so is mostly seen during Spring and Autumn passage. In the 11 years I’ve lived here, we’ve been lucky to have these terns stop off in the Cardiff area at least twice before, at Lamby Lake in September 2022, and at this same reservoir in late September 2024.

Black terns are small; the RSPB website gives their length as 22 – 24cm and their wingspan as 64 – 68cm. I’ve included a couple of photos so you can see this bird’s size relative to the Carrion crow that harassed it as it was feeding over the water, and to a Black-headed gull, as the tern sat preening on the muddy edge of the reservoir (the mud exposed due to a lack of water, caused by this summer’s drought).

My camera was not good enough to capture clear, close photos of the Black tern in flight – a mesmerising sight! – as the camera has neither the zoom range nor the sophisticated focussing software of more expensive models. Fortunately, this Black tern was alternating its time between 15 minutes flying, plucking miniscule invertebrates from the surface of the water, and 10 minutes sitting on the mud right in front of the visitor centre, so I was able to get good views of the bird preening, and took a little video clip, which I’ve loaded on YouTube. Enjoy!