HK Southern Water - first boat trip in 2019

Thanks to Carrie, we could go for a boat trip today. Terns should be the highlight of today, we saw Aleutian, Common, Little, Greater Crested, Bridled and Gull-billed Tern while Arctic Skua was the one skua species.

The most unexpected one was a migrating Grey Nightjar...... Heuglin's Gull and Oriental Pratincole also gave us surprises before the storm came.

And... distant birds, moving waves, bad lighting plus the wrong setting of D500 made today's photos become records of records......

my 2019 Big Year is 227.

Checklist: https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S55158852

Gull-billed Tern - note the strong bill

Little Tern - not a Chinese Crested

Greater Crested Tern

Greater Crested Tern

Arctic Skua

Arctic Skua

Arctic Skua - also called Parasitic Jaeger, you can see the brown breast band, short tail and bulky shape

Arctic Skua

Grey Nightjar - quite unexpected

Aleutian Tern

a flock of terns and phalarope

Bridled Tern - note the bridle

Common Tern in flight from above

Aleutian Tern

Common Tern swimming

Common Tern

Aleutian Tern

Aleutian Tern

Aleutian Tern - note the dark trailing edge of secondaries

Aleutian Tern

Aleutian Tern

Aleutian Tern with moustache?

Aleutian Tern - I love this species more than Common

Aleutian Tern

Aleutian Tern

Common Tern

Common Tern

Common Tern

Aleutian Tern

Bridled Tern - more white in underwing than Sooty Tern

Aleutian Tern

Common Tern

Common Tern

Common Tern

Aleutian Tern

Aleutian Tern

distanct Arctic Skua

Greater Crested Tern

Common Tern

Common Tern

Common Tern taking off

Arctic Skua

Heuglin's Gull

Oriental Pratincole

Bridled Tern

luckily we could be back before the storm