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.