Little Tern #67

In an effort to stay away from the strong winds and rain that was forecast for much of the island, we headed back to the mainland and revisited Gronant to check out the Little Tern colony. It was a wonderful visit apart from the wind. The little terns are one of the rarest breeding seabirds in the UK and Gronant is their last stronghold in Wales. This year has so far been a good year and there have been 213 nests identified, which is the most ever. The area is protected by two electric fences and is patrolled by 3 wardens/volunteers all day long. Their duties are to watch and record, repair fences, scare predators (mostly kestrels and sparrowhawks), evaluating the little terns and their environment and to greet and educate visitors to the site. They do a marvellous job. The birds themselves are just magnificent and wonderful to watch - tiny but feisty, and with chicks and birds on eggs, bringing food in is their main task at the moment. A couple more shots are in extras

In the afternoon we visited our second new site for the day - Big Pool Wood - a lovely little reserve with a pair of woodpeckers and 2 juveniles that we enjoyed watching. There's one of the youngsters in extras