Solent seabirds bounce back three years after bird flu wipeout
Sandwich terns have returned to Pagham Harbour in West Sussex in large numbers three years after bird flu wiped out the breeding colony there.
The colony produced 570 fledglings, young birds old enough to fly, in summer 2026 from 756 breeding pairs, according to figures reported by The Guardian. The count is described as one of the largest colonies ever recorded in the Solent region, after numbers fell to zero.
In 2022, highly pathogenic avian influenza, a severe form of bird flu, hit sandwich terns, black-headed gulls and Mediterranean gulls hard and led to the abandonment of the breeding colony at Pagham Harbour. The sandwich tern nesting colony at the site was completely wiped out that year.
Other species have also increased. Breeding little terns, ringed plovers, oystercatchers and black-headed gulls rose along the Solent coastline. At Pagham Harbour, black-headed gull fledglings increased from 51 in 2025 to 504 in 2026, while little tern numbers rose from 21 in the previous year to 34.
At Ferry Pool at Pagham Harbour, 18 pairs of avocets nested on newly created islands within a saline lagoon. The islands were built to provide open, low-lying ground for shorebirds.
The increases follow several seasons of conservation work. At Pagham Harbour, measures included fencing to keep out mammalian predators such as foxes, monitoring for rats, patrols by staff and volunteers, and selective removal of vegetation to leave space for nesting.
Elsewhere, floating rafts were used to create nesting spaces away from predators. At RSPB Medmerry, the rafts provided space for common terns and black-headed gulls. At West Hayling, an RSPB coastal reserve in Hampshire, the rafts boosted common tern breeding numbers.
The RSPB work covered 52,000 hectares of coastline and estuary between the south coast and the Isle of Wight. It sits alongside the Solent Seascape project, a long-term partnership led by Blue Marine Foundation to restore coastal nesting sites, seagrass beds, oyster reefs and saltmarsh.
