Mystery on Northumberland coast as seabirds ‘wash up on shorelines’

Investigations have launched as seabirds wash up on Northumberland coast shorelines.

According to birdwatchers in the last few weeks hundreds of razorbills and guillemots have washed up dead on the shore between Humberside and Orkney.

Others have also raised concern about the amount of birds swimming ‘unusually close to shore’.

Tom Cadwallender, a freelance ornithologist who formerly worked for the Northumberland Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), described it as a ‘real mystery’.

He told the Northumberland Gazette: “On our part of the coast you would normally expect the razorbills and guillemots from the Farne Islands to be getting ready to go out to sea for the winter.

“For some unknown reason they are hanging around inshore and the ones which are still alive are not as active as they should be. They should be feeding quite frequently but they many are just sitting on the water.”

However, Tom did offer some expert theories behind the unusual behaviour.

“There are several schools of thought. One is that we had a run of northerly winds over the last few weeks which may have created turbulence at sea that may prevent them from feeding- but that has settled down now.

“It appears there are plenty of sand eels on our bit of the coast so it’s difficult to explain. I’ve been birdwatching on the Northumberland coast for 50 years and this is unprecedented.

“Hopefully we will find out soon what is happening, but it is quite alarming.”

Razorbills and guillemots nest among rocks in seabird colonies at the bottom of cliffs and feed on fish in the sea.

The seabird unit at UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology has hinted these are indicators that ‘birds are getting desperate in their search for food’.

Dr Francis Daunt, ecologist at UKCEH, said: “The dead birds are little more than skin and bone, with many half their usual weight, which is catastrophically low. So, it appears that the birds are dying from starvation.

“This suggests that there is a lack of their fish prey in the sea, but people are seeing a lot of feeding flocks by our coasts at the moment, so perhaps starvation is being caused by something else.

“We have tested 10 birds for avian flu, all of which came back negative, and we are now looking at the possibility of toxic poisoning from algal blooms.”

Join the conversation on our social media below…

Share