A Royal Flush

On Tuesday the 16th of August 2016 I was in the middle of doing some summer homework when I got a beep on my phone. Seamus Feeney had just found an Orange-billed Tern sp. at Roonagh Lough, Co. Mayo". On hearing this news, I rang a few friends which this would have interested. Only 30 minutes later I got another beep on my phone, this time saying "MEGA ROYAL TERN at Roonagh Lough, Co. Mayo". What the hell was a Royal Tern doing in Mayo! Panic ensued; I rang as many birders as I could to get the news out quickly. It was too far to make it before nightfall from Dublin, so many set out to run for it the next morning, myself included. I got a lift to Balbriggan with a friend from Swords and stayed the night in Mark Stewart's apartment.

We set off at 2:45 am with our aim to be there for first light, our judgement, however, was wrong. As we were 45 minutes away from Roonagh Lough, I got a text from Victor Caschera saying "Royal still on the Lough". We were delighted. We were now thinking that there was no way we were going to dip. 20 minutes later I got a text from Harry Hussey. His text was gut-wrenching, it was to say that the Royal Tern had flown out to sea and was lost…our joy was short-lived. We found the lake with ease. There was a much smaller number of twitchers on site than I expected. I got out of the car and ran to the happy twitchers, but the bird had not returned since the original sighting. That dampened the mood. I knew the history of Royal Tern in Ireland and Britain; they just don't seem to be able to settle in one place.

One of the few dry spells at Roonagh Lough, Co. Mayo

It was lashing rain and I felt like there was going to be a long day ahead. The lake was filling rapidly due to the rising tide and torrential rainfall. The exposed mud was quickly disappearing.  A flock of smalls flew down the beach with a juvenile Ruff tagging along. Mark, John Power and Fran O'Connell and I walked the beach scanning at every chance. Offshore there were several terns fishing but visibility was rather poor. There were Sandwich and Little Terns feeding, and there were large numbers of smalls on the beach. I walked the entire strand as the others retreated to the Lough. I wasn't rewarded for my efforts. It was a truly miserable day. We decided to get breakfast in the nearby hotel.

We walked in and I recognised some faces from the BBC programme "Twitchers: A very British obsession", these were John Pegden and Garry Bagnell. I had a good conversation with them about past rarities etc. I had a full Irish breakfast before heading back to the Lough. There was no sign and things were dampened even more when I got a text from Steve Millar saying "Hi Brian any luck with the Royal...just to let you know the Least and Solitary Sandpipers are showing well on Loop" well fuck...We had originally planned to go for those two mega rarities before news of the Tern broke. We hemmed and hawed about packing it in and driving the 4 hours south to Loop Head. We didn't and decided to stay until near darkness waiting for the Royal Tern. I was heartbroken. I had been extremely lucky with all my twitches up to that point, especially with the other mega's I had tried for over the previous months and years. I had never dipped a bird of this magnitude before.

Time went on and more Brits arrived including Brett Richards who I was delighted to meet! One of the highest listing birders in Britain. Himself and Garry Bagnell made a proper effort to talk to a completely unknown birder and very low lister in myself, which I remember being delighted with. I first watched the BBC programme in 2012 and thinking that they were completely nuts… how time changes! Sadly though, this bird was gone. Small numbers of Sandwich terns built up, a few Mediterranean Gulls arrived in off the sea as well as a nice 3CY Iceland Gull. While others slept waiting for the bird, I decided to head back up the beach, again in the absolute pouring rain. The things we do for birds! I returned to the car defeated. We gave up at 19:30 or so after spending nearly 13 hours by the lakeside. It was a bad dip.

Between the dip and the 22nd of August, I managed three huge Irish ticks in the form of the Solitary and Least Sandpipers at Cloughan Marsh on Loop Head, Co. Clare and later a Terek Sandpiper at Tacumshin, Co. Wexford.

The following day, on the 23rd of August I was woken to a phone call from Harry Hussey. I answered immediately. "Brian, the Royal Tern is in Kerry!" I can't remember what exactly I said but I'm sure it was along the lines of 'HOLY F*CK'! Fair play to Harry who returned the favour after I let him know about the Royal Tern in Mayo. Dad had known how devastated I was after dipping the Royal Tern in Mayo and he drove me up to Ashbourne in under an hour where I had a lift to Kerry! Conor Foley drove down and Donal Foley, Mark Stewart, Dave Fox and I tagged along. We were on the road to the Kingdom!

News came through from the finder, Davey Farrar, to say that the Tern was mobile over a few beaches but it is hanging around. Davey is some lad for finding mega Terns! I previously ticked the Elegant Tern which he found in 2013 on the same beach! His collection now stands at Royal, Caspian, Gull-billed and Elegant Terns! Incredible stuff. The Royal Tern was the same bird as was in Mayo, as it had the broken leg. We arrived on the East Beach at Beale Strand but there were no birders on site! We immediately hopped back into the car and headed straight to the West Beach. The carpark was filled with birders but the bird had flown. AGAIN. I was completely gutted. It hadn't been seen in over 20 minutes. Groundhog Day! I was praying that it wasn't going to be a repeat of the events that happened 6 days previous. We were scanning for a few minutes and Mark Stewart roars "I've got it, 2 birds from the left of the Tern flock". WOW! I was on it! I watched it in complete awe for several minutes. After incredible views for 5 minutes, we realised that Steve Gantlett was wandering down the beach aimlessly and he hadn't seen it. We eventually got his attention and he managed insanely good images! Britain and Ireland's top lister!

We approached the bird slowly for shots. We got great views of this massive "carrot billed tern" which was dwarfing the nearby Sandwich Terns. Thankfully everyone who arrived in the next hour or so connected but it disappeared on the high tide that evening. It was seen for several days later. This bird showed a handful of signs of immaturity on the wing, there was an obvious dark secondary bar and the primaries were still moulting making this bird a second summer/third calendar year (2nd sum/3CY). A couple of white flecks had appeared on the almost all-black cap of the Tern, it lacked these the previous week as it started to moult into winter plumage.

This was a 3rd record for Ireland following a tideline corpse on the North Bull Island County Dublin in 1954 and a bird that spent an hour or two in Clonakilty County Cork in 2009. We were delighted to finally connect with this huge Mega. After the Royal Tern decided to fly a mile or two down the beach and land back down to roost, we headed home completely satisfied with our views. What a bird! 

The Tern that ate carrots

In the Spring of 2017, rumours started to filter about, that Royal Tern was to be split into two species! Bad news! Both subspecies at the time were practically identical and little was known about the separation of the two. A DNA sample was collected of the Kerry Royal Tern but unfortunately, the sequence was messy as it included Gull DNA and had become contaminated, and could not be repeated. Nothing more was mentioned on the split until about a year later when the IOC had it on their website as a potential split into West African Crested Tern (T. albididorsalis) and American Royal Tern (T. maxima). I had been told at the time that Pierre-Andre Crochet and Paul Dufour had an identification paper on Royal Terns in the pipeline. There was hope that the Irish bird of 2016 would eventually be identifiable.

In very early January 2020, the Royal Tern was split into two species by the IOC. Despite this slight disappointment, I was told that Crochet and Dufour's paper was about to be published by Dutch Birding! On hearing this I immediately subscribed to the Dutch Birding. I couldn't wait until the paper was released! On 18^th February 2020 I had access to view the paper! I spent the following hours completely engrossed in the paper and needed to re-read certain sections to get it to stick in my head. The more I read the incredible paper the more it became clear that the Irish bird in summer 2016 was a perfect example of an American Royal Tern (T. maxima).

The following is a direct quote from Crochet and Dufour regarding the Kerry bird: "Our discriminant analysis places this individual into the safe zone of maxima and its bill measurement ratios were all outside the range of albididorsalis. The phenotype of this bird exactly matched a typical maxima: a short and thick bill with a very uniform red colouration associated with a short distance between nostril and bill base. We have thus no doubt that this bird can be safely identified as maxima in a vagrancy context. The identity of this bird has been briefly discussed on the social media after the first results of genetic analysis from a faecal sample were released but all attempts to repeat and verify the genetic analyses failed and the genetic identification should be treated as inconclusive." This now means that the bird Seamus Feeney found in Mayo and which Davey Farrar found in Kerry will be a first for Ireland!

On reading this, I felt like I had just ticked Royal Tern all over again! What a quality species pair!

Now for African…

Was it worth all the effort? Absolutely.