Newborough Warren & Ynys Llanddwyn National Nature Reserve

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Overview

Guarding the southern opening of the Menai Strait on the southwestern tip of Anglesey, the Newborough Warren NNR is one of the finest coastal sand dune systems in Britain, with huge expanses of mobile and fixed dunes. The reserve also boasts some important geological features such as the Precambrian rocks of which the tidal island of Ynys Llanddwyn is formed, and the pillow lavas that form the approach to the island. A small lake, Llyn Rhos-du, occurs on the landward side of the dunes near Penlon. In the dunes, you will find plants such as butterwort and dune helleborine as well as other rare and interesting lichens, mosses and orchids. There is a thriving invertebrate population here, including the medicinal leech. The mudflats are the overwintering home to large numbers of birds, including heron, wigeon, teal, tufted duck, redshank and dunlin, more than 1 per cent of the British population of pintail, and a similar percentage of the British population of cormorant at Ynys yr Adar, near Ynys Llanddwyn.

Location

Pen-lon

About the area

Some of the oldest rocks in Britain form the 125-mile coastline of the 85 square mile Anglesey Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which includes Holy Island with its busy port of Holyhead, the terminus for the Dublin ferry. The terrain inland is mainly a fertile plateau worn flat by the action of the sea, with low ridges and shallow valleys, while the sheer limestone cliffs of the east coast and on the north coast at Holyhead Mountain represent some of the most spectacular sea cliffs in Britain.