"Terrible" Breeding Season For Northern UK Seabirds - One Shetland Island Has 100% Failure For Terns

[hatrack]

Seabird breeding has been "terrible" in some northerly areas such as Orkney and Shetland, RSPB Scotland has warned. The 700 Arctic terns present at the start of the breeding season on the Shetland island of Mousa failed to produce a single chick.

The organisation said the situation was "similarly miserable" on Orkney. The RSPB's Doug Gilbert said: "The terrible season for critical colonies in the far north warns us that seabird populations remain in real danger."

Just two kittiwakes were said to have returned to Orkney's North Hill reserve to breed, and not a single chick fledged there.

However RSPB Scotland said some species continued to do well, such as gannets.

EDIT

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-11565825

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. A complex situation, but it may be related to climate change

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/springwatch/2009/06/the_great_seabird_mystery.html

Differing sea temperatures can mean the birds' food has good or bad years. And if the sea temperatures go up overall, and the food (eg sand eels) migrates north in the seas, the birds, which have to nest on land, can't follow it - go north from Shetland, and you get no islands before the North Pole (perhaps they can survive on the Norwegian coast, but it can be different nesting on small island and on a continent).