Roseate Terns on Coquet Island: 2014 update

Tom Cadwallender has been involved with the ringing and monitoring of Coquet Island's Roseate Terns since 1992. He wrote an article about Coquet's Roseate Terns for BirdGuides in 2013, which you can read here.

Here, Tom and Kate Lowes (the resident research student on Coquet Island) provide an update on the 2014 breeding season at Britain's largest Roseate Tern colony.

Coquet Island 2014 (Photo: Kate Lowes).

2014 breeding season

After the two-week delay in the 2013 season, the 2014 season got back to relatively normal timing, the first birds being ringed on 15 June. The season was off to a brilliant start and food supply has been excellent throughout, with a plentiful supply of sand eels (Ammodytidae) of a good quality.

The exciting news is that the Roseate Tern population increased to 93 pairs, one short of the largest population recorded (2006). Productivity is currently strong, with the first fledglings dispersing around the UK, before heading south. The ringing programme has been very successful, with 102 chicks ringed this year. Also, a major milestone in Roseate Tern ringing was passed in the last few days, with now over 1,500 birds ringed since the programme began in 1991.

Adult Roseate Tern, Coquet Island, June 2014 (Photo: Kate Lowes).

Ring reading

Monitoring the adults breeding on the island indicates that the population is healthy and ever closer approaching self-sufficiency. The proportion of breeding adults that were ringed as pulli on Coquet has increased by 10% annually for the previous five years, and is now over 50%. This is a great indication that the colony is holding its own, and is not an overflow from outside the UK.

A foreign-ringed bird

As part of the annual monitoring programme, RSPB Warden Wez Davies spends a significant amount of time in the colony ring-reading, and this year, on 5 July hiding in plain sight alongside the 'usual suspects', Wez spotted a Roseate with an unusual ring: an upside-down Spanish ring! The ESI Icona ring (1V015109) is the first UK record of a foreign-ringed Roseate Tern — the bird was ringed as an adult at Salinas De La Tapa, Puerto De Santa Maria, Cadiz on 12 August 2010. At this ringing date and this locality this bird will almost certainly be a bird on passage to winter quarters on the west coast of Africa. A great reward indeed for warden Wez!

Adult Roseate Tern, Coquet Island, June 2014 (Photo: Kate Lowes).