Let's protect the homes and young of little terns

Little Tern – Ambassador of the Drava River

Koprivnica, May 8th, 2025 – The Little Tern (Sternula albifrons), one of the rarest breeding birds in Croatia, is returning to the gravel and sandbars of the Drava River to raise its offspring. These extremely sensitive birds depend on natural, untouched gravel and sand islands in the river—habitats that are increasingly threatened each year due to human impact.

Members of the DRAVA LIFE project team appeal to all visitors of the Drava River to avoid walking on sandbanks from mid-April to the end of July! With your attention and responsibility, you allow little terns to peacefully nest and raise their chicks, contributing to the conservation of this strictly protected species.
The little tern is a symbol of a living, natural river. Its survival speaks to the health of the river ecosystem shared by other endangered birds such as sand martins, kingfishers, and bee-eaters. Unlike the common tern, the little tern refuses to nest on artificial platforms and is exclusively bound to natural river environments.

Characteristics and Habitat

The Little Tern’s body is slender with narrow wings and a forked tail, perfectly adapted for fishing in rivers and seas. The chicks are gray-brown-yellow in colour, making them almost invisible on gravel and sandy islands without vegetation. In Croatia, they nest only on the Drava River in Koprivnica-Križevci County (with an average of 4-7 pairs), while the rest of the population nests along the coast. The presence of Little Terns indicates natural dynamic sections of the river flow with sandy and gravelly shoals, steep banks, and backwaters. It hunts small fish in shallow water zones along the riverbanks.

Threats and Protection

Mala čigra / Little Tern © Goran Šafarek

This strictly protected species is threatened by river regulation and hydroelectric power plants, extraction of gravel and sand, human disturbances such as rowing, fishing, swimming, etc.

The Little Tern is strictly protected under Croatian and European legislation and international conventions. It is protected according to the Nature Protection Act (OG 80/13, 5/18, 14/19, 127/19, 155/23) and the Ordinance on Strictly Protected Species (OG 144/13 and 73/16). It is included in the Croatian Red Book of Endangered Birds and is internationally protected under the EU Birds Directive (Annex I), the Natura 2000 network, and the Bern and Bonn Conventions.

It is prohibited to:
• Capture or kill them
• Disturb them, especially during breeding season
• Destroy or take eggs
• Deliberately destroy, damage, or remove nests
• Damage or destroy breeding or resting areas

Our Responsibility
To preserve the last breeding pairs of Little Terns, it is necessary to restore the natural river’s dynamics and allow the Drava to create new gravel and sand bars and prevent disturbance of birds during the nesting season. This was one of the main goals of the DRAVA LIFE project, in which Hrvatske vode, WWF, Association for Nature and Environment protection Green Osijek and Nature Protection Institutions of Koprivnica-Križevci, Virovitica-Podravina and Varaždin County have joined forces and worked together to create a best practice example of river restoration in Croatia and the region.

We also emphasize the importance of protecting the Drava River and protected areas within the County, especially the Mura-Drava Regional Park, which is part of the Natura 2000 area and the Five-country Mura-Drava-Danube Biosphere Reserve.

We can all be nature guardians! We invite everyone to join in protecting the unique habitats and species of our environment and to support the conservation of one of the last populations of Little Terns on the Drava!

You can find more info here The little tern leaflet.

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