Ronnie Ooi went pelagic birding of the coast of West Peninsular Malaysia recently when he spotted a Lesser Crested Tern Sterna bengalensis with a metal ring on one of its tarsus. It was seen on 16 November 2013 at 9.17 am, on a pole located in the sea that was about two kilometres from the shore facing the Straits of Malacca. Ronnie contacted me via my website, as he knew we ringed large numbers of Lesser Crested Terns on two small offshore islands in Bahrain. We have ringed more than 3000 birds so far there in the last five years and as we possible ring more Lesser Crested Terns than anyone and we are also probably the closest main ringing site to Malaysia it is possible the bird is one of ours. We ring with the type of ring shown and also on the left leg as this bird but obviously we cannot confirm it as one of ours as the ring details could not be read. Our recoveries so far have all come from the East of Bahrain, as Malaysia is, with birds recorded in India, the Maldives and Sri Lanka.
