Common Tern #76

Hurrah, the return of the sunshine! 
Checking the forecast this morning was great - only sun and cloud for the next 7 days. Of course this does mean more time spent watering the garden, but I can handle that :) 
As we are back at Mum and Dad's the next two days back on decorating duty we had a day out at WWT Martin Mere. 

Apart from the distant views of the Marsh Harriers, there were not many unusual or interesting birds about, until we came across a common tern and its chick on a little island. The other parent flew in with a fish but was being mobbed by the other terns and black headed gulls. It managed to land and then before giving up the fish to the chick, flew off again, only to be chased once again. It did this multiple times before finally flying out of site. I really don't know why it didn't either eat it or pass it on to the chick. Seems a bit foolish to continually fly about with it in your beak and wait to be attacked. 

I was thrilled to see that there were quite a lot of butterflies around today - the most I've seen this summer - the buddleia bush was living up to its name of  "butterfly bush" with comma, small tortoiseshell and red admirals a-plenty. And the thistles on the reedbed walk held gatekeepers and a few whites. So nice to see so many after what seems to be a poor year.....or maybe they're just a lot later on account of the colder spring we had?