Guangdong 6-7 Dec 2018 - a Laridae weekend

We have received news of Sandwich Tern Thalasseus sandvicensis recently, a rare vagrant species in E Asia, only few records in Taiwan and Japan. Thanks to Carrie's arrangement, we could make a weekend twitch! Even we had only 3 hours to bird in that spot, we still managed to see plenty Laridae - Heuglin's, Arctic Herring, Black-tailed, 1 Mew, 2 Relict, Black-headed, Saunder's Gull; Caspian, Gull-billed, Greater Crested, the target Sandwich and also two bonus Chinese Crested Tern! (Tung's dream tick) A great habitat there, we hope to revisit again to try the Little Gull and Spoonie!

The traffic to the spot, it was a pity that we couldn't try the HK-Guangzhou high speed railway:
6 Dec
G6258 (1902-1938) Shenzhen North to Guangzhou South
D7487 (2030-2328) Guangzhou South to Zhanjiang West

7 Dec
around 2 hours drive to Dongliao Dao
D7470 (1338-1645) Zhanjiang West to Guangzhou South
G6001 (1729-1758) Guangzhou South to Shenzhen North

The full list of the 3 hours birding: https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S50485947

train system in mainland China is quite convenient 

the habitat is a sandy beach, a bit different to Deep Bay, which is more muddy

not long we saw our first Chinese Crested Tern - reminded our memory in Fujian

the terns and gulls came roosting when the tide raising

we were trying so hard to find the 'special tern' inside the flock

three terns could be seen here: Caspian, Greater Crested and Chinese Crested!

a digiscoping of Chinese Crested Tern, can you find that?

we finally spot our main target here: 20.7772512, 110.3937126

a tern with black legs and bill with a pale tip - Sandwich Tern!

Sandwich Tern - the pale bill tip was hard to be seen in such a distance

Sandwich Tern in flight

first Relict Gull

second Relict Gull - the MP one we saw was even closer!

the raising tide telling us to leave!

crested ibis with the spot