Seabird Sees Miracle Recovery After Avian Flu Wiped Them Out.
A sandwich tern colony at Pagham Harbour in West Sussex, wiped out by bird flu in 2022, has grown to 756 breeding pairs after RSPB conservation work across the Solent region.
A colony of sandwich terns that nested at Pagham Harbour in West Sussex, England, was completely lost to bird flu in 2022. According to a report on conservation work by the RSPB, the colony has since grown from zero to 756 breeding pairs in three years.
Other shoreline species have also increased along the same stretch of coast, including little terns, ringed plovers, oystercatchers and black-headed gulls. The sandwich terns produced 570 fledglings at Pagham Harbour this summer, which the report describes as one of the largest colonies recorded in the Solent region. Black-headed gull fledglings rose tenfold, from 51 in 2025 to 504 in 2026, and little terns rose from 21 to 34.
The gains followed work by RSPB staff and volunteers at the Pagham Harbour reserve, along with similar efforts across 52,000 hectares of coastline and estuary between the south coast and the Isle of Wight. Newly created islands in a saline lagoon at Ferry Pool gave shoreline birds safer nesting areas, and 18 pairs of avocets nested there. Other measures included fencing to keep foxes and other mammal predators away from ground-nesting birds, monitoring for rats, in-person patrols and selective removal of vegetation to open up nesting space.
Wez Smith, senior project manager for the RSPB, said sandwich terns, black-headed gulls and Mediterranean gulls were hit severely by avian flu in 2022, and the breeding colony was abandoned. He said recovery took several years of dedicated work, and that “the site is now thriving with record breaking populations using it.”
Volunteers and rangers also patrolled to make visitors and local residents aware that ground-nesting birds are vulnerable to disturbance, and dog-friendly exercise areas were provided away from the nests. At RSPB Medmerry, floating rafts gave common terns and black-headed gulls predator-free nesting space away from dogs and boats. Rafts also increased common tern breeding numbers at West Hayling, an RSPB reserve in Hampshire.
The work is part of the Solent Seascape project, a long-term partnership of charities and institutions led by the Blue Marine Foundation. It aims to restore coastal nesting sites, seagrass beds, oyster reefs and saltmarsh along the coast.
Note: The headline says a seabird was wiped out and calls the rebound a miracle. The page describes the loss of one colony at Pagham Harbour, not a whole species, and credits the recovery to several years of conservation work.
At a Glance
- Sandwich terns at Pagham Harbour went from zero breeding pairs after the 2022 bird flu outbreak to 756 pairs in three years.
- The colony produced 570 sandwich tern fledglings this summer, one of the largest recorded in the Solent region.
- Black-headed gull fledglings rose from 51 in 2025 to 504 in 2026.
- Eighteen pairs of avocets nested on new islands in the saline lagoon at Ferry Pool.
- Conservation efforts cover 52,000 hectares of coastline and estuary between the south coast and the Isle of Wight.
Sources
This brief was written by Brightside Report from the reporting linked above. Spot an error? Request a correction.