Gronant Beach Little Tern Colony 9th July 2017

Although the birding group term officially ended last Tuesday a few of us wanted to fit in an earlier trip that had been cancelled due to bad weather; this was to Gronant beach where the Little Tern Colony is. As it happened, it was probably wetter this day than on the day we cancelled despite a reasonable weather forecast. It turned out to be a successful day of birding however so we were not too disappointed.

We parked in the big car park at Shore Road, just opposite the Crofter’s Pantry cafe which was very convenient as we had to wait for the rain to become less torrential. After a cup of tea the others of our lot arrives so there were five of us. We walked down the road and over the railway track and soon came to the entrance to the dunes. It is pretty clearly marked so it wasn’t a problem finding it.

When you get to the dunes proper, you can either go over the top which leads to the beach where you can get a view of the Ternery or you can turn right and follow the path to the wardens hut which overlooks the Ternery. We did both and had an interesting chat with the two relief wardens who were there. Apparently there were around 140 Little Terns there and breeding was going reasonably well. As we watched, numerous birds came and went and we spotted a single Common Tern among them.

In the dunes there were lots of Ringed Plovers, Stonechats, Skylarks and Meadow Pipits. There were Swifts, Swallows and Sand Martins in the air. On our way back we had an interesting encounter with hundreds of Natterjack Toad-lets that were hopping all over the path. There is something about this and other interesting stuff about Gronant Beach here.