A tropical bird that lost its way has found a safe haven in Bermuda after a journey of thousands of miles.

The sighting of a white tern is the first time that the bird has been recorded in Bermuda since 1972 — when David Wingate, the former government conservation officer, spotted one in Dockyard.

The newcomer tern was first spotted in the Kindley Field Road area of St George’s on June 24 by birdwatcher Paul Watson.

Mr Watson said: “I was riding along and saw a crow chasing a small white bird.

“I immediately recognised it as a white tern, or a fairy tern as they used to be called. There’s no other bird like it in the world because its plumage is completely white — there are no blemishes on it.

“It was incredible, because you just wouldn’t expect to see one here. Clearly it was lost because he’s come from half a world away.

“I managed to get off my bike and watch it for a few minutes but it was flying higher and higher. I thought that was it — that it was going to be a one-off sighting.”

However, the bird appears to have now made its home in the East End.

“I put the word out and it’s been seen again. It’s hanging around King’s Square in St George,” Mr Watson said.

The white tern lives on tropical islands in the South Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans.

According to bird expert Miguel Mejias, the closest colony to Bermuda is Fernando de Noronha, an island off the coast of Brazil.

However, Dr Mejias, a researcher and educator with the Bermuda Zoological Society, said that the Bermuda visitor was likely to have flown from farther afield.

Dr Mejias said: “This bird has a bluish bill, which belongs to a subspecies found in the Pacific. The Atlantic species has a black bill.

“As for how it got here, it probably exited the Pacific through the Isthmus of Panama and wandered north until it was fortunate enough to find Bermuda.”

Describing the tern’s presence here as an example of “extreme vagrancy”, Dr Mejias said it would be able to survive by feeding off small fish that thrive just below the sea surface.

He said: “When I saw, it what took me by surprise was how naive it was. It was trying to land on my head, land on my camera. They live on these remote islands where there’s a complete absence of predators and so they don’t recognise the danger that rats or cats may pose.”

Dr Mejias said that it was not possible to keep a track of the bird’s movements, but bird enthusiasts had been spending time in King’s Square, where it has been seen frequently.

Dr Mejias said: “The bird that came here in 1972 was only here for a few days.

“My best guess is that this one will stay as long as the weather remains stable but it may be driven off when the next hurricane comes along.”