Saturday Surprise

On Saturday 26th October a look around Mutford Lock in the morning failed to reveal the reported 'Arctic Tern', all I saw was a Grey Wagtail. Despite checking Mutford Lock, Oulton Broad and Lake Lothing. A 'Whats App' from Rob H seeing he had seen an immature Peregrine Falcon at Corton Church. So I drove up there, parked up and I looked over to the Church spire at St. Bartholomew's Church at Corton and there it was a superb immature Peregrine Falcon perched on the top of the spire, I moved to under the Sycamore tree to conceal my presence, the bird was facing me and I took a shot. lightened the exposure, and carried on. After a while the bird shifted and then looked back and unfortunately a very noisy motorbike was coming down the road (no silencer?) and the bird immediately flew north- east over the churchyard and out of sight. I had realised an ambition of seeing a Peregrine on the Church tower as I knew the last birds to breed in Suffolk (before recent breeding success) was at Corton Church in 1800. Just after lunchtime at home, a tweet went out saying the "Arctic' was back on the jetty. I drove back following Rob H's car. I parked up nearby and walking to the Lock, lots of Gulls on the Jetty, no Tern on the jetty, I saw Rob H walking up who said he had just seen it on a jetty near the Boulevard, we walked over but sadly it had flown as a boat had docked where it had been. Rob then said he thought it was a Common and not an Arctic Tern, he showed me his excellent pics and it was clear that indeed this bird was a Common Tern and not an Arctic. After a very civilised coffee break, Rob walked back to his car and I walked back to Mutford Lock and peered over to the Jetty only to see the Common Tern sat on Mutford Lock Jetty where it stayed for 15 minutes, initially it was sat on the jetty after 5 minutes it stood up and then 10 minutes later it flew to a verticle structure underneath the railway bridge. It stood facing away from me for 3 minutes before it finally flew over to Lake Lothing north- east and out of sight. A look through the pictures of the Peregrine I could see it had a silver ring on its right leg, a partial read of '4323' and on its left leg a larger pale yellow ring with hand writing on it all I could read here was 'S3'. STOP PRESS: It is likely this bird was ringed in Finland.