This week has seen numbers of fledglings surge every day. From counts in single figures last week there are now at a total of 110 fledglings as of today (9th Jul).

If you would like to join in the counts please head down to the Gronant visitor center and ask the warden a few hours before high tide. A few pairs of eyes makes the counts more accurate as the fledglings can be hard to spot from a distance along the beach. It is a fun challenge but also a very important one as this is the main measure of how successful the breeding season has been!

On a different note please take a look at the new UK Little Tern Project website, a legacy of the Life project which finished earlier this year - www.littleternproject.org.uk

The weather has improved lately and this is good timing for the chicks which now roam the beach and dunes at Gronant. Around 250 chicks have been metal-ringed this season, by far the highest ever, hopefully a sign of good things to come. A lesser number have also been colour-ringed for future resightings. At present the chicks are anything but easy to spot, sensible really. See the photo below for one hiding in the prickly Sea Holly for safety. The next couple of weeks will be crucial for those chicks to make it to fledging without being predated or affected by bad weather. There was hushed rumors today that the first chick had fledged, when it was seen to take a short flight down the beach. Great news!

There is always a flip side and that is that the Kestrel was seen to take a chick to feed on in the dunes. We are putting out food on the diversionary feeding station for the Kestrel which is working to some extent but not always and we need volunteers to come and do a predator watch in case it comes back. Please please please consider popping down for an hour or two to help out over the next couple of weeks.

Finally, the dunes are a riot of colour at the moment, largely thanks to the thousands of Pyramidal Orchids which have spring up from the sand. This makes the walk down to the colony all the more enjoyable, we've had just as many comments about the plants as the birds lately!

The update from today's (29/05) clutch count was that there are now 148 nests and 393 eggs. We are nearly at the peak and it is only eight days since the first nest was found. The average clutch size is also looking healthy at 2.67, the second highest on record! With this many nests to care for if you feel like spending a few hours down at the colony please come down and help keep watch over this ever-growing population. Now's a great time to see them with constant bird activity around the beach.

We are hoping numbers rise this year thanks to productive breeding over the last few seasons and high numbers of fledglings being produced. Last year's pair total was 171, so things are looking promising for an even higher total this year. Fingers and toes crossed.

The tern group attended the RSPB Conwy Bioblitz last weekend which went down well. Thanks to everyone who came and chatted about Little Terns, we even had a few new people join the group, welcome to you all! The group will also be attending the Nant Clwyd-y-dre Nature Day at Ruthin on Saturday June 8th so if you are in the area please do pop in! There will be a multitude of conservation organisations there  including Cofnod, BTO, Denbighshire Countryside Services and the Clwydian AONB team. The grounds of Nant Clwyd-y-dre are beautiful and deserving of a wander around in their own right.

With the site now fully installed and the wardens starting, it is exciting to see so many Little Terns back in the area. In the glorious weather over the weekend 138 adults were counted roosting on the beach, flying over the mirror-like seas and around the breeding pens. Courtship has been observed with some scraping following. Look out for the courtship flights in which the pair fly closely in tandem in an impressive arc through the sky. Occasionally they forget people are watching and fly right past, transfixed on each other!

With the onset of wardening, this is a great time to get involved, at the start of the season. Any members of the group and public are invited to assist the wardens with their duties. Any help is gratefully received and will continue to support this, the last (and therefore most important!) colony in Wales.

The following is from facebook following the end of season event, a run-down of what went on!

"Finally found time to check in again to let you know the NWLTG AGM was well attended on Friday, with 28 members in all. Thank you everyone for making the effort to be there. It was an interesting meeting, with a lots of enthusiasm, as to be expected! ;) Main topics, 'life after Life +' and the 'loss' of the Life+ Officer post and fundraising options. We gained 5 new members too!

The End of Season event also went well, with more folk coming along. This year's three wardens Sasha T, Frances Mac and Marie D talked about the events of the season, though Marie didn't mention her 'shark attack'! ;) Even when you've been 'following' events throughout the year it's good to hear it all in chronological order as a presentation.
Henry C (Life+ Public Engagement Officer) spoke about colour ringing and re-sightings. Lots of interesting findings this year, as he managed to devote a lot of hours to this activity (as did Jack S our previous Life+ Officer). Having GoPro cameras on nests was beneficial in this aspect too. Let's hope all the effort can be reciprocated in the future, to improve our understanding of these wee birds.
Professor David Norman (Bird Ringer extraordinaire!) talked about the planned Gronant Little Tern Tracking Project, and how the tracking worked, which should also enhance our knowledge about Little Terns. We are hoping to commence Geolocator tracking next year.
Patrick K (Treasurer) spoke about the achievements of the group this year, and mentioned our Geolocator sponsorship programme, and we gained our very first Geolocator sponsor! Thank you Brian I!
Sue Rendell-Reid (Manager of the Life+ Little Tern Recovery Project) spoke about the project. It's amazing the diversity of 'obstacles' affecting the birds up and down the country - from different types of predation to coastal erosion. It's good to know successful tactical information is shared between the colonies.























Photo of the new Little Tern mural by Sasha T (image courtesy of @penrhynbirder)

Sash T 'unveiled' her Little Tern mural which you will see on the side of the Visitor Centre next year. Thank you very much Sasha, a brilliant achievement! The time and effort you put into this is much appreciated and I'm sure the mural will be enjoyed by the visitors to Gronant for years to come!

Sadly our much anticipated surprise 'scoop' didn't go according to plan (does any meeting ever go smoothly?) and the voice-over, by Iolo Williams, and recorded by Marie D, was a silent affair. :( I spoke to him last night (at Theatr Colwyn) and he said he'd heard the meeting was a "very quiet do"! I thought he knew about the 'malfunction' but he went on to say "no dancing on the tables" etc. Don't know who told him that, lol! Anyway, all is not lost and we are hoping to find a way to share the voice-over with members at a future date.

I wanted to recognize the fact that it was the first season that we'd ever had three female wardens, and presented them each with a bouquet of flowers, in a vase, as a memento. I didn't manage to find vases with Little Terns etched onto them, but they did have flowers and Dragonflies! ;) Henry C received a Birds of Thailand book (he's off there on holiday soon) to recognize the fact he's the last EU Life+ officer. :( Adrian H received a framed photo of a Little Tern, to remind him of his years' as a 'Countryside Range' with DCS. He's going to continue as Chairman of the group though, thank goodness! :)
So that's my summary of the evening! :) Thanks to everyone that attended the AGM and the End of Season event. I hope you all enjoyed the evening, as much I did."

The other news is that the video mentioned above has now been completed and is on view on the homepage! That's all for this season but check in occasionally as there may be the odd update on progress towards next year.

We were pleased to welcome 'Derek the weatherman' aka Derek Brockway to the site yesterday (15/08) to help us take down the remaining fencing and film for his new series, Weatherman Walking, which will be aired next spring. He and the team got some nice shots for the programme (despite the weather being a bit iffy!) and it was lucky that there were c160 Little Terns still on the beach, mostly fledglings. Below is a group shot showing Derek in the middle with his certificate marking him becoming the 200th member of the group! Shown from left to right are: Hannah Arndt, Henry Cook, Christine Maresma Pares, Derek Brockway, Patrick Kelly, Sasha Taylor, Adrian Hibbert, Marie Dipple and Frances MacCormack.

This event marks a great end to the group's time at Gronant this season and now attention turns to the end of season event. All members of the group will have had an invite by e-mail or post and we look forward to welcoming plenty of you an interesting evening of talks all about Little Terns. Hope to see you there.

The pens have now fallen silent at Gronant for the first time since April. There is an eerie silence around the site but all the remaining 'ternlets' have now fledged. There are still small numbers to be seen down on the beach at high tide but most have moved away. Indeed 74 were seen off Hilbre Island today; a classic area they move to post-breeding to continue growing and feeding up in preparation for their mammoth migration. It's hard to believe that at only a month old, many of the youngsters will be starting their journey to the African wintering grounds. Best of luck to them!

The tern group and wardens have been busy taking down the equipment on site this week, before high tides hit at the weekend. Most of it is now down but there is an event outstanding to take kit off site on Friday 10th. Any help gratefully received, and in return there will be a picnic. Please bring something towards it if you can. In the coming few weeks the wardens will write the season report which will reveal how many chicks made it to fledglings this year, so I won't spoil the surprise here! All members of the group will be entitled to receive the report if they wish, just ask at the group's email address - nwlittletern@gmail.com.

Since the last update, everything has been going rather well down at Gronant. There have been up to 190 chicks hatch out with the last nest hatching yesterday (22/07). We are definitely in the last phase of the season with chicks starting to move away from breeding pens and certain parts of the colony falling quiet for the first time since May. Saying that, there is still a fantastic amount of activity around most of the site and it is good to see no shortage of food being brought in for the growing chicks. The photo below shows a rapidly growing chick hiding amongst the rocky terrain on the seaward facing shingle bank.

It was nice to see the NWLTG mentioned in a recent news article about the new visitor centre on the BirdGuides website. To read the article please click the following link - https://www.birdguides.com/news/denbighshire-council-opens-little-tern-visitor-centre/

There is an event on 10th Aug at Gronant from 10am to take down fencing at Gronant and a BBQ lunch. Please attend if you would like and bring something towards the BBQ. Taking down the site is always more relaxing than putting it up (no post thumping required!) and it should be a fun day so long as the weather holds.

Thanks to everyone who came down for the official opening ceremony of the Visitor Center and Hide at Gronant on a sunny and hot Sunday afternoon. We are grateful to Tony Thomas, lead for the environment in the council, for presenting a speech and cutting the ribbon. A group shot of the event is displayed below. It was a bit hot but refreshing drinks were flowing.

For something a little different, the following is a write-up by Maddalena, an Italian student doing a placement down at the tern colony a few weeks ago:

"I started my experience as a volunteer in the tern colony yesterday (19\06) and I was fascinated by all the work that’s put in the welfare of the birds. Being a foreigner I had never heard of the Little Terns before but I quickly recognised the beauty and importance of these shy sea birds and why they need our help to keep their nests safe and undisturbed. As a new and inexperienced volunteer my first day was spent mostly observing, listening and learning from the wardens that were fixing the damage done by the storm, but also helping actively by cleaning debris and carrying equipment, always careful not to step on the little chicks! A lot of work is put in to prevent predator attacks, checking the electric fences and making stone barriers to keep out the foxes and looking out for air predators such as the kestrel, but its noticeable these little birds are not defenceless, scaring away seagulls and dropping near your head to try to distance you from their nests. I really enjoyed my time there and the wardens have been nice and willing to tell me all about the colony and included me in their work whenever possible, even showing me one of the little chicks, but most importantly encouraging me to go look for a more naturalistic-oriented path for my future. I highly recommend trying the experience of volunteering in the colony, not only for its beauty but most importantly for what it can teach everyone."

In the next week most of the re-laid nests will hatch, but there will be high tides over the weekend. With the fairly benign weather there shouldn't be a repeat of a month ago but there may be debris to clear from fencing. Kestrels are around and taking some chicks but we are doing everything we can to reduce their damage to the colony. An update on that will be forthcoming once we know how successful the attempts at distracting them from tern chicks have been.

Everything was going well at Gronant. Too well? Could it last? The photo below shows the idyllic scenes around the colony in the days before the month's Spring tides with birds coming and going from the colony, and for a lucky few, tending their chicks.

The birds can cope with high tides but add on a one meter storm surge plus gale-force, onshore winds and you have a recipe for disaster. Storm Hector delivered the aforementioned conditions on Thursday 14th June and even an hour before high tide the waves were crashing in to the pens. By high tide itself the damage had been done Water washed over the crest of the pens and over the other side. We were frantically moving nests but couldn't move them any higher. All we could do was stare, disbelievingly. It was hard to watch.

After the tide receded the birds searched for nests and eggs but many were left walking around, confused. In the following days we took account of what had been lost and what little remained. There had been 174 active nests before the storm. 124 or so were lost and it could have been more if it were not for moving many of the remaining nests.

There was a lot of work to do to repair fencing and we are really grateful to all the people who answered the call for assistance. Thanks to the wonderful turnout, by the end of Sunday all the fencing was back up. A sincere thanks to everyone who came, you made a real difference allowing us to get the site back up with the minimum amount of disturbance to the birds. With a bit of fine-tuning this week the site should be back in full working order, ready for any re-laying attempts. All signs are good for this with birds displaying and making scrapes already. Watch this space... In the mean time, many of the nests that survived have gone on to hatch and we are getting great views of the chicks from the hide.

Assuming we get re-lays this will extend the season significantly and means we get to enjoy the birds for a bit longer! It's never dull down at Gronant so if you have not yet been this summer now is a good time.