A colony for the Little Terns at Gronant Beach has been named as third largest colony of its kind in the UK and Ireland.
A newsletter published by the RSPB states that 111 pairs of Little Tern nested at the site in 2009, with 123 young little terns successfully fledged.
The top two sites are at Great Yarmouth and Scolt Head, both on the East coast of England.
The newsletter states: “Gronant, the only colony in Wales, has been one of the most successful ones in the country in the last four years with stable numbers of breeding pairs and consistently good productivity of around one chick per pair and this was also true for 2009.”
Nesting on the shingle beach, the little terns, the second rarest sea bird in the UK, are very vulnerable to predation and disturbance. The site at Gronant, near Prestatyn, is extremely important as it is now the only place in Wales that little terns breed.
Denbighshire County Council’s Countryside Service, with the help of match funding by the Countryside Council for Wales and technical support from the RSPB, employed three seasonal wardens in 2009.
Success in 2009 could not have been achieved without the support given by a band of dedicated volunteers, both local and from afar, to help these small seabirds that have flown back to western Africa for the winter months.
