Breeding success and new hope for rare Roseate Terns at Coquet Island in Northumberland

A record number of 191 Roseate Tern chicks hatched on Coquet Island 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, in 2017.

This means the island, near Amble, 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.

Stephen Westerberg, RSPB Northumberland Coast Site Manager, said: “Here in Northumberland, we have the only colony of this elegant seabird in the UK. Knowing that the Roseate Terns have had such a successful breeding season after two years of bird flu gives us great hope for the future.

“There are still a lot of unknowns though, and we could see outbreaks of Avian Influenza in subsequent breeding seasons on Coquet. We hope though that next year will bring another successful breeding season for our Roseates but surveillance and preparedness for outbreaks is key.”

Despite the good news, the numbers of Roseate Terns returning to nest on the island this year were lower than in recent years and the hope now is that these numbers will increase next spring.

In 2022, thanks to many years of targeted conservation work, their numbers had grown to 154 pairs before then being hit by bird flu.

It is not known exactly how many Roseate Terns died from Avian Influenza and some may have died away from the colony but 2023 RSPB seabird surveys revealed a 21% decline in the Coquet breeding population since before the bird flu outbreak.

Coquet Island is home to around 45,000 breeding seabirds and at present is the only Roseate Tern colony in the UK.

Conservationists say that 276 adult Roseate Terns seen on Coquet Island this year hatched during or before 2022, when the disease first took hold on the island. This also brings hope that some of these birds survived the virus, but it’s also possible some of these birds did not catch it.

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.

Avian Influenza remains a threat to seabirds and between September and October this year, 20 Great Black-backed Gulls were found dead on Coquet Island, with samples testing positive for a different sub-type of bird flu to that seen in 2022 and 2023.

The oldest Roseate Tern, aged 13, returning to Coquet this year will have travelled at least 84,000 miles on its migration to West Africa, the equivalent of travelling three times around the world.