Trip reports

Report on Indoor Meeting - Coquet Island, a talk by Paul Morrison

Tuesday, 11 March 2008

The meeting was opened by Brian Moorhead who referred to the possibility of a group Social Meeting (anybody interested to contact Mark Smith), a request from the RSPB for volunteers for a farmland survey, and the forthcoming group 40th birthday event in 2009. A form had been circulated for those present to volunteer to help at this event, and a positive response was noted and welcomed.
The meeting was then introduced to Paul Morrison, RSPB warden for Coquet Island, who explained how this island, a flat plateau about a mile offshore from Amble Harbour at the mouth of the Coquet, was the only RSPB reserve in the North East of England until the development of Saltholme.
The island at one time housed a Benedictine Monastery; in the 19th century there were plans to incorporate it into the walls of a giant 'harbour of refuge' to be built by convicts who would be housed on the island, but its recent history is dominated by the presence of a lighthouse, the construction of which began in 1838 and was completed in 1841. Until the early twentieth century lighthouse keepers and their families lived on the island. They grew much of their own food and kept their own livestock on allotments which spread across the sixteen acres of land. At this time there was little room for birds.
The lighthouse still remains but it is now automated. Human presence is far less intrusive. The allotments which once grew food for the keepers are now dense nettle beds. The island has become home to a large colony of nesting sea birds. These include Eider, Black-backed and Black-headed Gulls, Puffin, and Sandwich, Arctic and Common Terns, as well as Roseate Tern for whom Coquet Island provides a nesting site for perhaps 90% of the (recently much reduced) UK population.
Paul described how his job is to mange these colonies and to protect the more vulnerable species from the predatory attention of the larger Gulls. Work includes preparation of sites in spring: the strimming of vegetation for the Terns, and the erection of low stone walls for Eiders to nest against. Gulls are discouraged by the broadcasting of alarm calls.
A major recent innovation has been the provision of nest boxes for Roseate Terns. Since 2000, over 200 nestboxes have been built on specially constructed terraces. This project has proved extremely successful, and the numbers of nesting pairs has risen from a low of around 20 pairs in the 1980s to current levels of around 100.
Human access to Coquet Island is carefully controlled. Visitors to the RSPB reserve are not permitted, but a live television picture is relayed to the Tourist Information Office in Amble. This television picture is also used by the wardens to monitor the island. In the breeding season wardens keep a 24 hour watch over the terraces from a specially constructed hide.
In response to questions Paul described how in recent years there has been vandalism, and the island has been raided by egg collectors. He also told us that Roseate Terns wintering in Ghana have been caught by children who wish to collect their rings.
At the end of the meeting Paul was thanked for a most interesting and enjoyable presentation.
Clive Morphet