LOTTERY funding is to turn an unusual colony of kittiwakes into screen stars.

The birds, which nest around the quayside in Newcastle and Gateshead, are the furthest inland colony of gulls in the world.

A £10,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund has been awarded to the Durham Wildlife Trust to stream live footage of nesting kittiwakes into the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and also over the internet.

The cash will also enable a programme of interactive events to be run at the Baltic in order to increase understanding of the birds.

A member of the gull family, kittiwakes make a noise which sounds like ‘kittiwake’ when they call – hence their name.

It is thought there are about 800 pairs of the birds on the RiverTyne.

Jim Cokill, a director at Durham Wildlife Trust, explained: “Cameras will be mounted on the outside of the Baltic looking across a ledge where the kittiwakes nest.

“Installing the cameras will be a bit tricky as you need abseilers in order to do that, but the aim is to have them in place by the end of March in time for the birds returning to their nest sites.”

Mr Cokill said that while kittiwakes have been nesting on the Tyne since the 1960s, their usual home for the majority of the year is far out at sea.

He said: “It is really unusual to get a bird like this so close to the urban landscape and we want to give people the opportunity to really appreciate them.”

Ivor Crowther, head of the Heritage Lottery Fund in the North-East, said: “Thanks to money raised by National Lottery players, an amazing range of projects across the North-East have been able to conserve and share heritage like this.”