South Binness Island facts for kids
South Binness Island is a small island located in Langstone Harbour. It is about 600 meters (or 656 yards) long and up to 240 meters (or 262 yards) wide. The island is not very high, rising only about 2 meters (or 6.5 feet) above the average sea level.
Discovering South Binness Island
This island has a long history. People have found old items there, like pieces of pottery from the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age was a time thousands of years ago when people used bronze tools. They also found an unfinished stone knife, called a Plano-convex knife.
In 1978, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) bought South Binness Island. The RSPB is a group that works to protect birds and their homes. They turned the island into a special bird sanctuary. This means it is a safe place for birds to live and raise their young. Because it is a sanctuary, people are not allowed to land on the island without permission.
A Home for Birds
South Binness Island is an important place for many birds. It is a nesting site, which means birds come here to lay their eggs and raise their chicks. Two main types of birds nest on the island: the black-headed gull and the little tern.
In 2008, there were almost 5,000 pairs of black-headed gulls nesting on the island. There were also 11 pairs of little terns. Sadly, none of the little tern chicks survived that year. Experts thought this might have been partly because there were so many black-headed gulls.
Helping the Little Terns
Little terns are small seabirds that need safe places to nest. Their nests are often just shallow scrapes on the ground. This makes them easy to wash away by high tides.
To help the little terns, workers added 500 tonnes of small stones and gravel to a beach on the island in 2013. This material is called aggregate. The goal was to make the beach higher. A higher beach would give the little terns more nesting spots. These new spots would be safer from the tide and less likely to be washed away.
