With glimmer of hope for their recovery
Thirty conservation volunteers have spent over 500 hours monitoring how many chicks Yorkshire’s Kittiwakes have raised throughout the summer.
Results revealed today show each pair on average raised 0.82 chicks, which means it is now more likely that the population will be maintained.
Kittiwakes are an ‘indicator’ species, which means if they are doing well, this is a good sign that Puffins, Gannets, Razorbills, and other seabirds should also have had a good year.
Despite this renewed hope, 43% of the UK Kittiwake population has been lost since 2000 and so the RSPB warns much more needs to be done to help these birds, and other seabirds, amidst the nature and climate emergency.
Kittiwakes (and Puffins) have sadly stayed on the Red List of highest Conservation Concern (*as announced 2 September).
Thirty conservation volunteers from Yorkshire have spent 500 hours in all weathers during May, June, July, and August monitoring RSPB Bempton Cliffs’ threatened Kittiwake population. Home to the UK’s largest mainland seabird colony, around half a million seabirds make these spectacular East Yorkshire chalk cliffs their home in the summer.
Now on the Red list of highest conservation concern (added in 2021, changing from Amber), the UK’s Kittiwake population has, shockingly, declined by 43% over the last 25 years and the colony at RSPB Bempton Cliffs is one of international significance.
RSPB Bempton Cliffs is a significant part of the Flamborough and Filey Coast Special Protection Area, which holds more than 20% of the UK breeding population of Kittiwakes, so monitoring is crucial to understanding how the population is faring. Each conservation volunteer was given 50 nests to monitor within a specified ‘plot’ and they painstakingly recorded how many eggs were produced and crucially how many chicks fledged from each nest. 865 individual nests were checked weekly across 16 study plots around the Bempton Cliffs, Flamborough and Filey seabird colony.
The Kittiwake study is part of a wider programme of monitoring productivity rates for Gannets, Guillemots, Razorbills, Herring Gulls, Shags and Fulmars, supported by Natural England and the renewable energy company Orsted. Bempton’s Puffins are trickier to monitor, as they nest in burrows in the cliff face, and the Pufflings fledge at night to avoid predators, and so it’s very difficult to know how many of their chicks are fledging.
“Because Kittiwakes are an ‘indicator’ species, dependent upon sandeels, they effectively let the conservation teams know how the wider marine ecosystem is doing. In a nutshell if the Kittiwakes are doing well, then the Puffins and other seabirds should be producing good numbers of chicks too. Historically, far more Kittiwake pairs were regularly fledging two chicks, taking the average number of chicks to over 1 chick per pair.
“Bempton Cliffs is home to one of the UK's top wildlife spectacles, but these populations of seabirds are at the forefront of the climate emergency, and they are in significant decline. The work our volunteers do in monitoring the Kittiwakes is vital, and along with other detailed monitoring by the RSPB team is giving us data that will help us conserve not just this species but the wider seabird populations here.”
Conservationists hope too that the recent sandeel fishery closures will begin to have a positive impact. For ten years the Kittiwakes here fledged on average 0.5 chicks per pair (or one chick for every two breeding pairs), and the population declined during this period. There was a population decline at the Yorkshire colony of nearly 7,000 pairs (there were 6,961 fewer pairs of Kittiwake in 2022 than seen in the previous full count in 2017, with a decline from 51,535 to 44,574 pairs).
But this is the third year in a row that on average each pair fledged above 0.8 chicks at RSPB Bempton Cliffs and the wider Flamborough and Filey Coast protected area, in 2024 raising 0.82 chicks per pair. If there is plenty of food, then there may be a return to pairs fledging one or more chicks. There is now renewed optimism that Yorkshire’s Kittiwake decline could be starting to turn a corner, and conservationists are encouraged to see this trend as it is more likely that the population will be maintained and hopefully increase.
Whilst the Kittiwake monitoring work is all completed, Gannets will be monitored until October.
“Spending so much time with the Kittiwakes and keeping my eyes peeled on just one spot means you get to know their nests well. You start to feel personally connected to them and are willing for them to have healthy chicks. Some might say I have got too attached to them! It’s tough not to get emotionally involved as they are such beautiful birds”.
“I felt I wanted to volunteer to give something back to nature. The UK is home to significant populations of internationally important species such as Kittiwakes, Puffins and Northern Gannets, so protecting what we have here in the UK will have an impact on populations around the world.”
Around half a million seabirds, including Gannets, Kittiwakes, Guillemots and Razorbills as well as around 3,000 Puffins breed at RSPB Bempton Cliffs each year, on the dramatic 400 feet high chalk cliffs. It is a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and its European importance is recognised in its designation as a Special Protection Area (SPA).
The most recent seabird census, Seabirds Count, published in November 2023, showed that around half (13 out of 25 species) of seabird species in the UK have declined since the previous monitoring was done between 1998-2002. Drivers of seabird declines include climate change, predation, lack of food, bycatch in fishing gear and offshore development. More recently, on top of these losses, populations of many species have been severely impacted by avian influenza.