So the terns have gone, for now, and we (the Wardens) are mulling over the season. In fact we are almost re-living it, as we trawl through the diaries and shift reports, plucking out events and crunching numbers summer is coming back to life.

Our focus now is the end of season report. After 3 months on the beach we are in an office, trying to make the adjustment to working at a desk! 

The report will soon be published, laying out in detail the story of 2014, but in brief, it has been a good year for the colony. The Little Terns faced significant challenges, notably Fox predation, but there were many reasons to be positive.   

We had 136 nesting pairs of Little Terns, producing 229 Nests, and ultimately 77 Fledglings. It's the best result at the colony since 2010 and this is due, in part, to the incredible volunteer support we received. An amazing 643 volunteer hours were contributed. Many different people helped protect this vulnerable seabird, and without their help, future generations may not have a vibrant and diverse coastline that little terns create.

Warden Alec Holton enjoying another sunny day at Gronant

Reflecting back, there were certain personal highlights for the wardens. The long shifts can be very tiring, but the rewards are great and often revealed at time when everyone else is asleep. For me, spotting the first 3 Fledglings on a sunny Sunday in June was a special moment. My fellow warden, Alec Holton, particularly enjoyed watching the nest he had taken so much care in gradually moving inside the electric fencing, hatch out in safety. Perhaps those chicks will be back in two or three years’ time, with chicks of their own. Andrea was astonished to witness the parental commitment and consistency of a pair rearing their two chicks at the end of the season, when all others had left; 2 feeds for one chicks, then two feeds for the other, over and over again every 20 minutes whilst also patrolling the skies and herding their young around the beach.  

    

Myself, Tom Hiles, getting a fledgling count at the end of July 

2014 marks a decade of Denbighshire Countryside Service managing the colony, and 2015 will be the 40^th year that the colony has been protected. We have been looking back at some of the previous years’ reports and it is striking how much time and effort has been invested in protecting the colony from so many different people. There have been seasons good and bad, but since 1975 the number of pairs nesting at Gronant has slowly risen from just 15 to 136. We hope that once again next year there will be a collective effort to protect this last remaining Little Tern colony in Wales.    

Done and Dusted

First off, last weeks Presentation Evening was a great success. Following a very enjoyable season down at Gronant, all the wardens, staff volunteers and other interested folk got together to talk all about our special little seabird - the Little T's! The project team here have been overwhelmed by the support received from volunteers over the season, especially their uplifting and positive vibe - which makes a huge difference on the most difficult of stormy days - continued throughout the evening and will, I am sure, last until April next year, when it all starts off again.

Prof David Norman gave a very interesting account of his studies over the last 32 years, including an insight into the understudied growth rate of Little Tern Chicks, something that we hope to investigate further in the coming years. 

Little is also known about Little Tern dispersal and demographics, year of first breeding, migration routes and natal site fidelity. Dr. Leah Williams from RSPB Conservation Science spoke during the evening about the plans to start answering some of these questions through a nationwide colour-ringing and resighting project developed with funding from the LIFE+ Little Tern Recovery Project. More must be understood if we want to effectively conserve the species and ensure future generations will have abundant wildlife to enjoy.

A similar colour-ringing project has started this year on the east coast of Ireland and has already produced interesting results! The recently fledged bird pictured below was found on Hilbre Island on Aug 10th, and had flown 190km from Kilcoole, CO Wicklow and sheds some light on Little Tern Movements around the Irish sea.

Little Tern Fledgling with Irish colour-ring hilbrebirdobs.blogspot.com

With the potential of more colour-ring recoveries from elsewhere in the future (including the Isle of Man and Cumbrian colonies) we hope to learn more about Little Tern movement, and could highlight the importance of the Dee estuary to Little Tern migration.

Little Tern at Gronant - Eric Woods .

End of Season Event

For any regular visitor to Gronant during the summer months, August is a dramatically different scene. Frequent change is what makes coastal habitats intrinsically interesting, but it's always an upsetting event to see the birds off. 'Our' Little Terns will now be feeding around the Dee Estuary, or indeed further along their migration route back to Africa. Following a great turnout of Volunteers on Friday, the entire site is now clear of fencing and the shingle is once again open to the public.    

To celebrate the 1st year The Gronant Little Tern Project's inclusion in the EU Life+ Little Tern Recovery Project, we are hosting a presentation evening to discuss all things Little Tern and to report on the 2014 breeding season, has it been boom or bust?! Dr Leah Williams from RSPB's Conservation Science department will be discussing plans for Colour Ringing at Gronant and elsewhere in the UK, and Prof David Norman will give an overview of his 30 years experience of ringing Little Terns at Gronant and what we can learn from it.

All will be revealed on the night and later reported on here. All welcome to what's promised to be an interesting and enjoyable evening!

Little Terns at Gronant By Sarah Lewis

It’s ages since I’ve seen little terns and I miss their creaking cries so I head for Gronant Dunes to see what’s happening.

I’m welcomed by a chorus of skylarks as I pass ponds that shelter natter jack toads and newts, swallows dart and swoop over rippling grasses and I feel like Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road as I follow the boardwalk towards the sea.  Pyramidal orchids glow either side of the boardwalk like the solar lights along my garden path and blue-grey sea holly is about to burst open, providing a sweet feast for red and black burnet moths.  Then I hear the familiar high pitched chatter and I look up to see a little tern flapping jerkily above me, luminous and glowing in the strong sunshine.  I love these little birds, they’re feisty for their size and with black Zorro masks they seem to slice up the sky.  And they need to be feisty, during their short breeding season, they have to contend with crows, gulls, foxes and high tides.  The warden is out doing nest counts, he says they’re doing OK but there’s a kestrel around causing problems.

Today the tide is far out and the birds have a long way to go to find food.  I watch one fly back from the foaming sea with a tiny silver fish in its beak.  But distance is no problem for little terns; they fly 4000 miles from the West Coast of Africa to nest here every year. And when the newly fledged young are only a few weeks old, they’ll be making the epic journey back again. 

I make an epic journey of my own, all the way down to the sea to paddle, escorted by little terns creaking and chattering. The sun is strong but the breeze is cooling and I eventually arrive at the water’s edge.  I can’t imagine having to continue all the way to Africa .

Attracting Terns.

It goes without saying that the vast majority of holidaymakers will make their holidays on the coast, and the Victorians were no exception. North East Wales once had a booming tourism industry, owing to the large expanses of sandy beaches that stretch almost uninterrupted from the Dee estuary to Llandudno, and the relative ease of access from the cities of North West England.

Apart from a couple of brief periods when Britain was consumed by War, recreational use of the North Wales coast increased during the 20th century. Peaking in the 70s and 80s when owning a caravan in Prestatyn was regarded as a social prestige, development has dramatically changed the coastline. From what would have been extensive sand dune and salt marsh systems, we now have hard sea defences and promenades.

We are quite fortunate then, that the remnant sand dunes west of the Dee estuary (known collectively as the Gronant Dunes and Talacre warren SSSI) are still outperforming their man made competition, both in terms of biodiversity and their ability to resist storm surges, further west. It is here of course that the last colony of Little Terns in Wales have been nesting for over 100 years, and have been actively protected since 1975.

Talacre Warren and Gronant Dunes SSSI - Last remnant sand dune system in North East Wales

So why then, does this all too fussy species choose to come back to Gronant year on year? and why do they choose to nest on ground so prone to flooding?  As with most explanations of a species' natural history, the answers are many and is down to a contribution of factors. I've split them up into separate blog posts, starting with the most basic need of a sea  bird.

Food

As their name suggests, the Little Tern is Europe's smallest breeding Tern species, and small birds, require small food. Adult terns feed on a variety of prey in their lifetime, including small crustaceans annelid worms, pelagic molluscs, insects (dragon flies, grasshoppers, flies, gnats) and other invertebrates, but mainly on small, oily fish. The young, however, are almost exclusively fed on small fish.

Little Tern with a Sand Eel at Gronant - Fish are also used exclusively
for courtship and mating performances - Males attract females down to the
shingle with a fish, females may then accept this gift without providing with
their end of the bargain

Little Terns will generally forage for smaller fish than Common, Arctic and Sandwich Terns, their larger relatives. And unlike other seabird breeding colonies further north, there has never been a recorded issue with food availability at Gronant. Chick growth rates are limited only by their metabolism, and chicks are often seen refusing food (Norman, 94). The Dee estuary has one of the highest tidal ranges in Europe, and the strong currents that come in with the tide, and comparatively weaker currents on the way out is what's responsible for depositing sand and shingle higher up the beach. This forms safe nesting habitat for shore birds, but also creates a shallow sea. This shallow sea close to the shore at Gronant provides habitat for small fish such as sand eel to thrive, and thus, excellent foraging grounds for Little Terns.

Embryo sand dune, shingle ridge and shallow shore at low tide, Gronant.
West-East Long Shore Drift is responsible for constantly dumping new material -sand and stone - on the beach.
This process must continue to provide nesting habitat for the Little Tern in the future.

The proximity of food source is very important for this species, they are thought to forage no further than 5km from their nesting site. There are also other foraging opportunities for the Little Terns close by; adults are often seen fishing in the lagoon at the rear of the dunes, and also in the salt marsh creak, less than 50m from some nests.

In contrast, the reduction of larger food sources in other local areas has been suggested as a cause for the decline of a Common Tern colony, further east at Point-of-Ayr. Though this has not yet been studied.

The more experienced adult Little Terns will remember that there is an abundance of food here, close by, and this will attract them back year on year. Historically, little terns were not thought to be site-faithful, however, the gradual increase of breeding pairs over the years, and the relative isolation of the Gronant colony suggests that the majority of our terns do return to their natal grounds to breed. However, some birds ringed at Gronant have been recovered elsewhere, and visa-versa, this contradiction will hopefully become more clear as a new colour ringing programme, developed by the EU Life+ Little Tern Recovery Project gets underway next year.

Shingle Shambles

Before the Little Terns arrive at Gronant every year, our first step is to survey the extent of their available nesting habitat; that is the topography of the ever changing sandy shingle onto which these rare seabirds lay their eggs. From there we can decide the extent of the electrified fencing, this protects the nests from ground predators, such as fox, badger, mink and other mustelid. The task was made very difficult this year as the shingle is currently in a transitionary period. A new ridge is jutting out north eastwards, comprised of the type of shingle that Little Terns seem to find irresistible. Though this new ridge has dramatically increased the size of nesting habitat on the beach, it has not yet grown to a sufficient height to save the nests during June and July’s incoming spring tides. Unable to dissuade the birds from nesting in this area, we are unfortunately going to lose a number of nests to these highest tides.

The Little Tern nest, bottom centre, was found on the 'new' shingle ridge.
 At 50m outside of the boundary fence, and around a meter below the reach of the highest tide,
This nest is unlikely to make it.

However, the winter storms that caused so much damage to the North Wales Coastline have in fact proved beneficial to the terns. The older shingle ridge, which will soon get swallowed by the advancing dune system, has been thrust upwards by the storms, and many Little Terns have chosen to nest here. These nests will hopefully remain warm and dry, and will soon begin hatching. The transience and frequent change of the habitat here is what I find so endearing about this part of the North Wales coastline. Many visitors wonder just why these tiny seabirds (weighing no more than two packets of Quavers) decide to invest in such a risky strategy for reproduction, after all, they've flown 3,000 miles for the pleasure of it. This will be the topic of my next blog post.

An update:

So far this season we have marked 120 Little Tern nests. We will use this figure, in conjunction with other numbers, such as peak adult counts, to ascertain the population size here at Gronant. 120 pairs is roughly 10% of the UK population, or 1% of the European population.  

Welcome to the Gronant Little Tern blog. This page will soon be updated with information and resources on the only Little Tern (Sternula albifrons) breeding site in Wales, located on the Gronant shore in Denbighshire.

Volunteers and Wardens have been hard at work over the past few weeks readying the shingle shore for Little Terns to nest. 2.5 km of electric fencing protects the vulnerable eggs and chicks from ground predators, whilst Volunteers and Wardens attempt to deter predators on the wing.

The colony has gone from strength to strength over the past 39 years, recording 15 pairs in 1975, to 129 pairs in 2013. As is the nature of Little Tern breeding biology, the last three years haven't proved as successful as others with remarkably high tides and predation from Foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and Kestrels (Falco tinnunculus) largely to blame.

2014 sees the beginning of an exciting EU Life+ Little Tern Recovery Project, a partnership between Denbighshire County Council, the RSPB and 7 other beneficiaries. The 5 year project aims to increase our knowledge of Little Tern demographics, their habitat, and their needs. The Gronant Little Tern Conservation project, delivered by Denbighshire CC Countryside Services, aims to ensure the future of the Little Tern in Wales and to improve community involvement with the UK's second rarest seabird.