One good (little) tern deserves another, and another, and another…

How did Teesside’s little tern colony go from 3 successful fledglings in 2021, to 141 survivors in 2024? A case study in positive human intervention, dedication and persistence…

“That’s a nice lift” says Tony, as the adult slice upwards from their invisible nests among the sandy shingle at the southernmost end of Seaton Carew beach. A regular volunteer watching over the terns, he loves the way they barrel roll so their bellies catch the sun bright white, then suddenly flip their pale grey backs towards us so that against the blue-grey haze of the horizon the birds disappear.

They are a constant magic trick. Although I can hear their little raspy screeches before I even get out of the car, they are only easily visible when in motion, and they drop into rest on their nests like flipping the switch on a cloaking mechanism.

Today is a finer day than when I last came, bundled up against a sudden wind-harried drop in May’s temperature. On that day everything was grey, and the male terns were spending every ounce of their energy on constant forays to the tide for sand eels. For a courting tern, nothing says “have chicks with me” like a beakful of silvery sand eel. The warden that day, Emma, told me that the eel numbers seemed good and that mating was taking place all over the strand. Occasional flappings of raised wings like little white flares in all the grey showed me where breeding pairs were getting down to business. A month later and the same brief flashings of wing-white erupt where birds land and settle on their shallow scrapes – an estimated 80 nests – where both eggs and chicks are now present.

Colin volunteers to show me a chick through the huge tripod scope set up on the promenade for curious passers-by to learn more about this protected site. I’m looking at the fluffball for a good 20 seconds before I even see it, the speckled, sandy camouflage markings are so successful. More chicks hunker under one of the half-pipe ridge tiles laid out across the site as emergency shelters, looking like a clumpy sand-drift. Only movement gives them away; living as they do under a panopticon sky full of predatory larger gulls and hungry kestrels, their natural instinct is to stay very, very still.

The Tees Valley Wildlife Trust looks after this site, working together with Durham Wildlife Trust, which protected this tern colony when it was breeding north of here at Crimdon. Tony tells me how they migrate here in April from the Gambia, looking for shingle beaches and spits to inhabit. He waits for their arrival, and feel properly ’empty nest’ when they leave again.

Tidal activity being what it is, those shingles the terns seek can change their topography year on year, or disappear completely, and even during the course of a breeding season the colony can get washed out by high tides and storms – so the birds are flexible about where exactly they settle. When the colony started to fail in Crimdon, they moved south to Seaton. This year’s colony has been joined later in the season by birds believed to have been washed out of their first nests at Long Nanny near Beadnell.

The warden on duty today, Derek, tells me that in the six years this site has been active, the local people have taken it to heart. Teessiders have always pitched in to help protect the terns, whose eggs are so vulnerable to predators and accidental damage, and who will simply leave their nests to die if disturbed by humans. In volunteering to go on watch, I’m following in my mother’s footsteps – she watched them at weekends in the 1980s, when their breeding site was over the other side of the Tees mouth in South Gare.

Having a warden and volunteers is a huge part of the success story that has seen fledgings increase exponentially at Seaton. From 2021 to 2022, the jump in chick numbers surviving to migration stage was 3 to 89! What changed? The Trust got funding for a fence. A simple fence. Split cedar pales hammered into the sand to warn off dog-walkers, information signage, and paid wardens with the back up of dedicated and knowledgeable volunteers who can explain and engage. The global population of little terns is classified by the IUCN as ‘of least concern’, despite their acknowledgement of a 30% decrease in overall populations in the last decade – like every species, they definitely need protecting now, as rising sea levels and increased storm severity will undoubtedly make their survival difficult in the decades to come.

As I’m standing at the promenade wall, sketching the scene, a young lad jumps up onto the wall and is quickly warned down by Derek. But it’s not Derek’s style to be punitive, that gets you nowhere. Instead he always makes a point to talk with people encroaching on to the site, and in no time he has the whole family chatting, observing nests, and checking out the chicks through the scope. I talk to the mother and the younger sister, who are entranced by the fluffy babies and had no idea the birds came here every year. It’s excellent to pass on the little bit of information I’ve learned, tentatively trying to forge another link in the chain of connection between humans and nature. It’s a small start towards finding my own way to act as a custodian and a good ancestor.

If you’d like to do something positive, meaningful and sustainable about nature, biodiversity and climate, you should absolutely start by giving what you can (membership, donations, volunteering) to the organisations already on the ground, doing the work. That could be a global charity or your local wildlife trust.

For my fellow Teesside readers, please if you can, become a member of the Tees Valley Wildlife Trust and consider becoming a volunteer warden. If that’s not possible right now, check out other ways you can benefit from the Trust’s amazing work, for example by visiting one of their reserves or taking part in their 30 Days Wild challenge with the family.