A rare colony wins the heart of a city
Newcastle upon Tyne has risen up in support of its unique urban seabirds, reports Tom Ough
Messy, noisy, and usually found congregating on grand stonefronted buildings, the kittiwakes of Newcastle’s quayside appear to be nothing more than a nuisance. Easily mistaken for their obnoxious herring gull cousins, kittiwakes usually live on cliff edges, but they began arriving in the city from the Tynemouth coast in the 1940s.
Eight miles inland, the clamorous seabirds now dominate the quayside’s Sunday market from February until their annual August migration northwards. Many of them nest at the top of the garguantuan stone pillars that support the Tyne Bridge, a locus of regional pride now spattered with white droppings.
With this in mind, you can understand why a Quayside hotel group earlier this year resolved to drive out the irksome parvenus once and for all. An electric shock system, they decided, would scare off the kittiwakes. They asked the council for permission to wire up the Tyne Bridge. Someone even put up spikes on the bridge although the hotel group, Gainford, denied responsibility.
It could have been the end for the Tyne’s kittiwake colony – but then something curious happened. Suddenly, no one wanted the birds to go. The hotel group’s plans drew around 1,000 complaints, and such was the local outcry that the project was withdrawn. But why?
It all goes back to that unusual upriver migration, which makes the kittiwakes of Newcastle the furthest inland permanent colony of their species. Nobody knows for sure what brought them so far from the coastline cliffs where they traditionally make their homes, but this alone makes them a zoological point of interest – the adults still feed at sea, making trips far out to sea lasting up to ten hours.
Add that to their red-listed conservation status: these are endangered creatures. Then factor in their favourable comparison with herring gulls. While they share the white and grey plumage of the common gull, kittiwakes don’t scavenge. All this goes some way to explaining their unlikely ascent to the status of regional treasure – and the launch of the Kittiwake Cam which has further endeared them to the public.
High up on the north face of the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, two narrow stone ledges support around 80 nests. With the help of a £10,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Durham Wildlife Trust has maintained a live online video feed of the colony. It has proved so popular it has brought the trust’s website down on many occasions.
Nesting, hatching, first flights and courting unfold on viewers’ screens. There is occasional fighting, too, of course, and even some very underhand behaviour: one member of the trust reports seeing a particularly devious kittiwake taking advantage of its neighbours’ canoodling to filch their nesting material.
Fascinated schoolchildren have been treated to the trust’s classes on the rare bird in their city’s midst. The Baltic has had an exhibition of its kittiwakes, and 15,000 people have come to the gallery to watch the video feed and stand on the viewing platform that overlooks the nests. Peter Stranney, 31, is one of the trust staff who helped with the kittiwake project. He and the charity’s other employees are hoping to win another grant: the £3,000 of National Lottery Awards Good Causes environmental category. The money would be put towards the continuation of the kittiwake webcam.
Whether or not the trust wins (the public vote closed in July) Stranney is glad the birds have made a permanent home of the Quayside.
“It’s easy to feel disconnected from nature, particularly in an urban setting,” he says. “But hearing the cry of the kittiwake removes you from the bustle of urban life and reminds you that nature is much closer than we might think.”