2 Common Terns, 1 Little Tern + 1 BFT, Waikanae Sandspit

[Michael Szabo]

Johannes Fischer reports 2 Common Terns and a Little Tern with 1400 WFTs at Waikanae Sandspit at 11.50am today:
https://ebird.org/checklist/S126579519

Neill Heggarty also reports a juvenile Black-fronted Tern was there with the tern flock at 11.35am today:
https://ebird.org/atlasnz/checklist/S126577492

[Alan Tennyson]

I saw the 2 common terns at Waikanae today too. Both immatures I think.

[Alan Tennyson]

An adult common tern was present today (a different bird to the Plimmerton adult seen yesterday), so that's at least 4 commons on this coast at the moment. Also the little tern was still there.

[Michael Szabo]

Checking through the 1000+ WFT flock at Waikanae sandspit this afternoon with Oskar Ehrhardt and Tom Broughton we found 1 Common Tern, 1 Little Tern and 1 BFT:
https://ebird.org/atlasnz/checklist/S127312685

[Michael Szabo]

Roger Brent Smith reports via Facebook circa 500 WFTs, 7 BFTs, 1 little tern and 1 immature common tern at Waikanae Sandspit this afternoon along with 200 sth black-backed gulls, 2 godwits, 3 wrybills, 3 royal spoonbills, 20-30 pied stilts, c.12 pied oystercatchers, 7 caspian terns, and 3 NZ dotterels.

[GrahamB]

Just got back from my first visit to the Waikanae sandspit for several weeks. First tern I saw after crossing the spit to the sea (c 10.45) was the Little Tern, feeding fast and acrobatically over the light surf. I picked it up not long afterwards down at the end among the dispersed WFTs - these on the riverside half of the spit. I didn't see any Common Terns among the many WFT juveniles and fluffy chicks, but one juvenile Black-fronted Tern. A nice posse of Caspian Terns as well, and two NZ Dotterels at the first sanctuary. At least one godwit in the river channel, left bank.

One thing that I was going to post about yesterday was the stranding of euphausiids (krill) along the Waikanae Beach. Claire and I had commented on the fairly unusual sight of many Black-backed Gulls at the middle beach area (opposite the 4-Square). There was a significant drift line of dead euphausiids, and this probably account for the smell down at the spit too. I've never noticed this phenomenon before here.
Cheers,
GrahamB