25 Years of Roseate Tern terraces
This year marks a milestone year for Coquet Island’s Roseate Tern success story.
In 2000, Dr Paul Morrison, aka Capt’n Coquet, hosted a research visit by Sammy Adu, from the Ghanaian Wildlife Society. Sammy monitored and safeguarded Roseate Terns along the Ghanian coast, the winter destination for Roseates from the UK, the Azores, France and Ireland. After his visit to Coquet Island, Sammy headed to the islets of Rockabill, off the Irish coast. Rockabill was, and still is, the European stronghold for Roseate Terns. At that time, the majority of Roseate Terns that nested on Coquet Island were from Rockabill.
Press cutting from 2000 at the start of the construction of the Roseate Tern terraces on Coquet Island
Achieving Roseate Tern success on Rockabill includes minimising disturbance and providing clusters of nest boxes on man-made terraces. The idea was brought back to Coquet Island and after the initial terrace was constructed in 2000, the numbers of Roseates increased to 34 pairs the following season with every pair nesting in the new boxes. Children from Amble Middle School made the first of these boxes.
Each year more terraces were added, thanks to the efforts of the original Northumberland Coast Conservation Team volunteers active on the coast at the time. The terraces were built using dry-stone retaining walls with flag stones laid to reduce undermining of the terraces by puffins!
In 2017 the introduction of recycled interlocking plastic pavers made the job a lot easier, although the combined effects of puffin excavating and winter storms meant that annual repairs of the terraces were needed.
It was noticed that Roseates made use of shingle fragments to create “nest scrapes” for their eggs. This initiated a new activity at the start of every season – “shingling” – which involved staff and volunteers wheel-barrowing fresh clean shingle from a shell beach to the terraces.
The introduction of discrete wildlife cams in 2016 enabled the public to observe the behaviour of Roseate Terns inside their boxes and the full extent of the importance of shingle became apparent as the birds regularly and carefully pass individual shell fragments to each other upon entering or leaving their nest and constantly rearrange the shingle around their eggs. This pair-bonding is an added reason that Roseates do well on Coquet, bucking the global trend of this species’ decline.
The link with Rockabill persists with Paul now helping with repairs and the extensive annual Roseate Tern ringing programme on Rockabill every year.
