BRITAIN’S two rarest seabirds both have internationally important breeding colonies along our local coastline and this summer they’ve had very contrasting fortunes.

Roseate terns have had their best year so far but their smaller cousins, little terns, have suffered badly.

Figures just released by the RSPB show that a record 118 pairs of roseate terns fledged a total of 119 young at their British stronghold on Coquet Island, Northumberland. Adults and juveniles are now moving off towards their wintering waters off West Africa leading to a number of sightings among other terns along the coast of Durham and Cleveland. Five juvenile roseates were reported from the South Gare and others from Whitburn Steel and several sites in south Northumberland.

The success at Coquet Island, where numbers have been increasing year on year, means that it’s now home of virtually all roseate terns breeding in the United Kingdom. The birds are using wooden nest boxes lined up in terraces. These give protection for incubating adults, their eggs and chicks from large gulls.

In contrast, our little terns have had another poor breeding season with the regular colonies at Crimdon and Beadnell Bay failure to fledge young. The only bright spot was the region’s third colony at Lindisfarne where 17 young fledged, probably the only little terns to be successful this year along the entire east coast of England and Scotland.

Little terns like to nest on open beaches just above the high water mark but these are, of course, exactly the places where they are most at risk of disturbance from walkers, particularly those with dogs. Fencing off nesting areas does help a bit, provided the public cooperates. But it can’t prevent nests being washed out by tide surges, eggs and chicks being buried by blown sand and it does nothing to prevent predation from gulls, crows and occasionally from kestrels and other raptors.

The little terns at Lindisfarne lost their first clutches of eggs to an abnormally high tide but most went on to lay again. A second group of seven or eight pairs lost their second clutches or small young in a single night, probably when an otter discovered the site. Life for little terns really is tough.

Westerly winds have largely blocked the migration of smaller species but there has been a good run of long-tailed skuas along the coast. Individuals have appeared at Burniston, Staithes, the South Gare and Whitburn. Even more excitingly, a Fea’s-type petrel, a super-rarity from the South Atlantic, was logged moving northwards off Whitburn, Cullercoats and Druride Bay.