“It was a very challenging year,” Harriet Reid said with considerable understatement as she reflected on a horrendous 2022 for one of the UK’s most important sanctuaries for breeding seabirds. “But we’ve learned a great deal and we feel more prepared.”
Reid is the National Trust’s area ranger responsible for the Farne Islands off the coast of Northumberland, home to an abundance of seabirds, many of them threatened species.
By Thursday, most of the different species of birds that come annually to the islands had arrived.
In the sky, Arctic terns were swooping majestically while puffins bombed towards their destination far less elegantly, their panic-stricken wings frantically flapping. On the island’s rocky shores, Eider ducks had made their nests and were settled while drakes hung around in gangs, not quite sure what their next job was.
There were also shags, fulmars, kittiwakes and then guillemots, often mistaken for little penguins, which had tightly packed themselves into awkward ledges and cliffs.
It was a wonderful scene, one normally experienced at extremely close quarters by the public. But avian flu led the National Trust last year to close the islands to the public, meaning the birds can now only be seen from the popular sail-round tours offered by local boat operators.
Last month the trust announced a repeat of the closure, until August at least, after avian flu was detected in a handful of birds.
The fear is that there will be a repeat of last year’s devastation which resulted in the removal of 6,000 bird carcasses. The true figure of bird deaths is unquestionably far higher given how many dead birds will have fallen into the sea.
It was a traumatic, often miserable year to be a ranger, agreed Tom Hendry, who has been in the job since 2016. “We’re there to look after these birds, to count them and also to share the spectacle with members of the public.
“So it was very challenging … but you just have to focus on the job at hand and how to mitigate the problem as best you can.”
A lot of Hendry and his colleagues’ days were last year spent in hazmat suits picking up dead birds, triple bagging them and getting them off the islands to go to incinerators. It was a terrible but vital task. “The more they are lying there, the more risk there is of the disease spreading.
“It was difficult but for me it was a case of just being in the moment and reflecting about it afterwards. It unfolded so quickly. I think everyone responded differently and was affected differently.”
Of the 6,000 carcasses removed last year most were guillemots, kittiwakes and puffins with 3,542, 818 and 467 dead birds collected respectively.
The avian flu crisis is a global one. The World Organisation for Animal Health (Woah) said there had been “an unprecedented number of outbreaks” of bird flu reported in regions across the world since the outbreak began in October 2021. Wild seabirds have been particularly hard hit.
The National Trust has been caring for the Farne Islands, home to about 200,000 seabirds annually, for nearly a century. There are no records, the trust said, of anything so potentially damaging to the already endangered colonies.
The hope is that making the islands off limits gives the birds a better chance of survival.
The islands are also home to one of England’s largest grey seal colonies. To see them as well as the birds, the public will have to use companies such as Billy Shiel Farne Island boats, which has been operating trips since 1918.
Reid said she was tremendously proud of her team and was optimistic. “After last year we’ve learned a great deal and we feel more prepared.”
