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Visit the charity's profileLittle terns are one of the UK's smallest seabirds, weighing less than a tennis ball. Every April these tiny birds beat tremendous odds by traveling thousands of miles from West Africa to a small strip of Chesil Beach to raise their family. With any luck, each adult pair will hatch two of the cutest chicks you're likely to see. The colony of little terns at Chesil Beach is the last remaining colony in South West England.
Little terns are one of the most threatened seabirds in the UK. They have disappeared from our coastline at an alarming rate and need our help. Rising sea levels, food shortages, predators, extreme weather conditions and disturbance to their ground nesting from people, are all factors in their decline.
By 2009, the Chesil Beach little tern colony had dwindled to a handful of birds and for the first time in living memory, no chicks were hatched that summer - the colony was at risk of being lost. So the RSPB, in partnership with the Crown Estate, Chesil Beach & the Fleet Nature Reserve, Portland Court Leet, Natural England, and Dorset Wildlife Trust, launched The Little Tern Recovery Project to save Chesil's iconic bird.
The project saw the yearly installation of a predator fence around the colony to protect vulnerable chicks and 24-hour wardening from project staff, volunteers, and the local community to protect these special birds from predators and accidental disturbance by beach users. Within one year of the project's protection, nine chicks fledged, the highest success rate since records began in 1976. And by 2017 the recovering colony produced a staggering 73 fledglings!
The project costs £17,500 to run each year and for the past ten years we have raised this through grant funding. However, due to increasing competition and demand for grants, the vital funding for this summer's project has run short.
We have managed to secure £4000 so far for 2019 (already registered in the pot as an offline donation). But we desperately need your help to raise the remaining £13,500 by the end of April, to ensure that 2019's little tern chicks can safely grow from egg to fluffy fledglings and make that long journey back from Chesil to Africa in August 2019. Please help us ensure that little terns remain part of the Dorset's landscape, where they rightly belong.
New predator fence: Each spring we place a temporary electric fence around the little tern colony to protect them from predators. This fence has proven essential to the colony's success each year. But we need to replace it annually as the sea's salt spray causes the wire to corrode.
Project Officer: The Little Tern Recovery Project is managed each year by one paid member of staff who is employed from April-August. They look after the smooth running of the project, co-ordinate all volunteers, keep a daily check on the birds' progress, and generally make sure the little terns have the best chance.
Equipment, clothing and overheads for the projects volunteers: The project volunteers require proper clothing and equipment, including telescopes, binoculars, high powered torches and so on, to keep a 24/7 eye on the birds. And they also need facilities while on the beach for long periods - particularly cups of tea!
** £6.50 donation will help us protect one little tern nest for a night on Chesil Beach.
** £25 donation will buy one roll of electric fence to help us protect our little terns from predators - we need 16 rolls in total .
** £450 donation will let us protect one little tern nest for a whole season at Chesil Beach, until the chicks fledge and fly to Africa.
** If anyone locally is able to donate a four bedroom house/ flat in Weymouth or Portland for three months, May-July, to house our key volunteer staff on site this would make a big dent to the cost of the project. **
Thank you for your #LittleTernAppeal support.
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Twitter: @RSPBSouthWest and @Little_tern17
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