Volunteers Monitor Yorkshire’s Kittiwakes

Volunteers Monitor Yorkshire’s Kittiwakes - RSPB

With glimmer of hope for their recovery

Thirty conservation volunteers have spent over 500 hours monitoring how many chicks Yorkshire’s Kittiwakes have raised throughout the summer.
Results revealed today show each pair on average raised 0.82 chicks, which means it is now more likely that the population will be maintained.
Kittiwakes are an ‘indicator’ species, which means if they are doing well, this is a good sign that Puffins, Gannets, Razorbills, and other seabirds should also have had a good year.
Despite this renewed hope, 43% of the UK Kittiwake population has been lost since 2000 and so the RSPB warns much more needs to be done to help these birds, and other seabirds, amidst the nature and climate emergency.
Kittiwakes (and Puffins) have sadly stayed on the Red List of highest Conservation Concern (*as announced 2 September).

Thirty conservation volunteers from Yorkshire have spent 500 hours in all weathers during May, June, July, and August monitoring RSPB Bempton Cliffs’ threatened Kittiwake population. Home to the UK’s largest mainland seabird colony, around half a million seabirds make these spectacular East Yorkshire chalk cliffs their home in the summer.

Now on the Red list of highest conservation concern (added in 2021, changing from Amber), the UK’s Kittiwake population has, shockingly, declined by 43% over the last 25 years and the colony at RSPB Bempton Cliffs is one of international significance.

RSPB Bempton Cliffs is a significant part of the Flamborough and Filey Coast Special Protection Area, which holds more than 20% of the UK breeding population of Kittiwakes, so monitoring is crucial to understanding how the population is faring. Each conservation volunteer was given 50 nests to monitor within a specified ‘plot’ and they painstakingly recorded how many eggs were produced and crucially how many chicks fledged from each nest. 865 individual nests were checked weekly across 16 study plots around the Bempton Cliffs, Flamborough and Filey seabird colony.