Fabulous to see birds bouncing back after the devastation of the last few years

Breeding Success and New Hope for Rare Roseate Terns - RSPB

at Northumberland Nature Reserve

A colony of one of the UK’s rarest breeding seabirds, devastated by Avian Influenza in 2022 and 2023 has produced more chicks than ever before. A record number of 191 Roseate Tern chicks hatched this year and 92% of those young birds went on to fledge (175 fledged out of 191 hatched).

The productivity of Roseate Terns (or average number of chicks fledged per nest) was 1.39 from 126 breeding pairs and this has only been beaten once before in the history of the colony when in 2017, 111 breeding pairs fledged 1.45 chicks (155 in total). This means the island also saw its second most successful breeding season yet for Roseate Terns, but RSPB experts say it is too early to say if this is a sign of recovery from Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza.

For long lived species such as terns the recovery process could take many years and avian flu has not gone away - but the figures this year bring new hope for Coquet’s seabirds.

There was good news for Arctic Terns too, which fledged their highest number of chicks ever per pair at 1.49 and Common Terns fledged an above average number of chicks per breeding pair at 1.47 but the number of breeding pairs at 353 (compared with 1,875 Common Terns pre bird flu in early 2022) was the lowest ever recorded.