With sightings recently of an Elegant Tern at Laaiplek and a Lesser Crested Tern at Yzerfontein, we decided to head up the west coast and work through the tern roosts there to try and get both of these tough local species for the challenge list. The first stop at Yzerfontein produced a fairly large tern roost but, despite a lot of scanning, we could not locate the Lesser Crested Tern and only found Swift, Sandwich and Common Terns. It was also totally overcast so the light for photography was not great, but there were a few other common coastal species around (we photographed Sanderlings for the challenge here) and there was also a small pod of Dusky Dolphins in the bay although they remained distant the whole time we were there.
After giving up on the tern at Yzerfontein, we made our way north to Laaiplek in Veldrif where we started working through the tern roost at the mouth of the Berg River. Here, again, we were unsuccessful in locating the bird we were after! Talk about a bad day! Some small consolation prize was an Osprey, a new species photographed for the challenge, but, by now, the rain had started bucketing down, so conditions were not great and, eventually, we called it a day and made our way back home. So, these are two very good vagrants for the challenge area that have not yet made it on to our list...
