Sussex Terns Now Nest in a Gated Community With 24/7 Cameras. 756 Pairs Moved In.

In 2022, at the peak of the bird flu outbreak, the Sandwich tern colony at RSPB Pagham Harbour in West Sussex was abandoned. In 2026, at least 756 pairs bred there.² That is a record for the reserve, and it puts Pagham among the largest Sandwich tern colonies in England.⁴

The comeback matters because ground-nesting seabirds were hit hard by highly pathogenic avian influenza, the severe form of bird flu. It also shows that careful work on the ground can help a colony return. It is one site, though, and the national picture is still worrying.⁴

How the birds came back

The RSPB, the UK bird conservation charity that runs the reserve, said “hundreds of hours of conservation action” went into bringing the terns back.² Sandwich terns breed on three islands at Pagham, the newest of them built in 2021. Each island needs significant management every year.²

That work includes:

• clearing back vegetation so the birds have open ground to nest on
• maintaining exclusion fencing that keeps predators out
• biosecurity checks to reduce the risk of disease spreading
• monitoring the colony 24 hours a day

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Rangers and volunteers watched the islands through real-time cameras and in person. Patrols also helped visitors and local residents keep their distance from adults sitting on eggs and from young chicks.⁴ A good share of seabird conservation, it turns out, is fence repair, weeding and politely asking people to give the birds some room.

The Sussex Express, citing the RSPB, reported 570 Sandwich tern fledglings (young birds that have grown their flight feathers and left the nest) recorded at the site this year.³ For a sense of scale, the RSPB reported 253 Sandwich terns at Pagham in 2021, before the outbreak.⁵

“The site is now thriving with record-breaking populations using it,” Wez Smith, an RSPB senior project manager, told the Sussex Express.³

Other birds had a good year too

The terns were not alone. Black-headed gull fledglings at Pagham went from 51 in 2025 to 504 in 2026, and little tern fledglings rose from 21 to 34, according to the Sussex Express.³

New islands in the reserve’s Ferry Pool lagoon drew 18 nesting pairs of avocets, a wading bird that had rarely nested at Pagham before. Those pairs raised 24 fledglings this year.³ Build the real estate and, apparently, new neighbors do show up.

The Guardian reports that breeding little terns, ringed plovers, oystercatchers and black-headed gulls also increased along the same stretch of coast.¹ It credits work by RSPB staff and volunteers at Pagham and similar efforts across 52,000 hectares (about 128,000 acres) of coast and estuary between the south coast and the Isle of Wight.¹

Pagham is part of the Solent Seascape Project, a partnership that maintains a network of islands and nesting sites for ground-nesting birds across the harbors of the Solent, the strait between mainland England and the Isle of Wight. West Sussex County Council, Arun District Council and Chichester District Council support the recovery work at Pagham.²⁴ Nearby, the RSPB’s Langstone Harbour reserve had its best year ever for breeding Sandwich terns in 2024, with almost 200 young fledging.⁶

Bird flu has not gone away

The good news at Pagham is local, and it does not mean Sandwich terns have recovered across the UK. An RSPB assessment found that in 2023, Sandwich tern numbers at surveyed UK sites were 35% below where they stood before the outbreak.⁴

The virus is still circulating. In August 2026, the RSPB said thousands of seabirds had already died that summer, with outbreaks in all four UK nations.⁴

That makes the islands at Pagham, with their fences, cameras and yearly upkeep, more than a one-season success. They are part of the work of keeping these colonies going while the threat continues.