Seabird Spectacular

For a brief few months, Cemlyn Nature Reserve on Anglesey is home to one of the most amazing seabird spectacles in Wales…

Meet the terns

Join the wardens for a walk around Cemlyn Bay and a chance to hear all about the tern colony – one of the largest in Wales..

Visit Cemlyn Nature Reserve

Each year, as winter turns into spring and summer, thousands of birds from all around the world make their long way back to our coasts to take advantage of the wealth of food and opportunity. These include three species of terns: remarkable and beautiful birds (their ‘sea-swallows’ nickname is perfectly descriptive) who travel thousands of miles from the southern hemisphere to raise their young on the small islands in Cemlyn’s lagoon.

Linking North Wales with the seas and oceans across the world, Cemlyn is one of the most important seabird colonies in Wales. Its Sandwich tern colony is the only one in the country and regularly one of the largest in the UK; with smaller numbers of common and Arctic terns and black-headed gulls. Throughout the summer months, visitors can watch quite a spectacle as the birds go about their daily life. Sandwich tern pairs dance around each other in courtship displays and later bring sandeels in to the nest to feed their hungry youngsters; whilst squabbles and fights break out regularly.

Away from the colony, other spring and summer visitors are also busy – dunlin and sandpipers are often seen feeding around the lagoon, whilst the churring call of grasshopper warblers can be heard from the surrounding scrub. And every year at Cemlyn brings renewed promise of a rare visitor – golden oriole, bee-eater, sooty tern, wryneck and isabelline shrike have all visited in the past, and brought plenty of human visitors with them soon after! n

Situated on the wild north coast of Anglesey, with its unique, elliptical shingle ridge, Cemlyn is an incredible place to visit. The nature reserve is best visited from May through to July when the islands within the lagoon host the nesting colonies of Sandwich, common and Arctic terns. It is the only nesting colony of Sandwich terns in Wales and a true wildlife spectacle – not to be missed!

Virtual tour

Discover what makes Cemlyn Nature Reserve such a great place for terns and what North Wales Wildlife Trust is doing to help them make it their home! Visit their website to take a virtual tour with their interactive infographic.

More details are available at: northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/cemlyn-terns

Paysanne opened its doors in June 1988, an impossible 35 years ago. Bros and Debbie Gibson were riding high in the charts, and shell-suits and spiked mullet hairstyles had not yet been outlawed. Someone else who was very popular around that time was Keith Floyd. His BBC cookery shows about fish and the food of the British Isles had quickly made him a household name and proved that being half-cut was no barrier to being a successful television presenter.