Hundreds of gulls and terns at a nest in Deeside have actually been eliminated by bird influenza.
One of Wales’s biggest nests of Black-headed Gull and Common Tern is discovered next to the River Dee near Shotton, where the birds nest on 2 big concrete platforms. Unfortunately the nest has actually been struck hard by bird influenza this summer season, with regional birders fearing it’ll take years for numbers to recuperate.
Since early spring, more than 40% of Shotton’s Common Terns have actually passed away, said Pete Coffey from Merseyside Ringing Group (MRG). An approximated 200 Black-headed Gulls have actually likewise died at the website, which hosted more than 400 sets in 2021. So far not a single chick has actually endured.
Some 40% of Common Terns at the Shotton nest have actually passed away due to bird influenza (Robin Gossage).
Speaking to Radio 4’s Today program, Mr Coffey said: “This year we had more than 1,000 Black-headed Gulls nesting by the end of April. We then began to observe a couple of dead gulls and this intensified quickly. In completion we ended up with more than 200 dead grownups. It’s had a disastrous influence on chicks – lots have actually passed away therefore far we have actually not had a single chick that has actually fledged.”
Soon, MRG’s volunteers started observing the very same pattern duplicating with Shotton’s Common Terns. “We feared the worst by this phase, and this is precisely what we got – we have actually lost 40% of our adult population up until now,” said Mr Coffey.
“We understand the ages of a lot of the dead birds from our bird sounding information. This revealed us that a lot of the casualties we’’e got, had several years of breeding ahead of them, so we have actually lost that friend of the breeding population.”
Shotton’s Common Terns utilized to nest on the surrounding saltmarsh however breeding seasons typically stopped working due to tidal flooding. In 1970, a synthetic island was produced by the steelworks which, in its very first year, drew in 13 sets. By 2021, and with a 2nd raft in location, more than 20,000 tern chicks had actually hatched at the website.
