Gateshead Birders

Baltic Flour Mill
Riverside
Gateshead
Tyne & Wear
NE21 5AF

The Kittiwake Tower proposed LNR is an artificial nesting tower built in 1998 to accommodate birds displaced by re-development of the Baltic Flour Mill as an international centre for contemporary art. The River Tyne is Gateshead and Newcastle has an inland nesting colony of kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla. The tower stands within an area of closely mown amenity grassland and was seen to be very successful with over 100 nesting pairs in 2002 and 50 young were raised in 2003. The unusual task of the creating the tower was because of the removal of the nesting kittiwakes from the original facades at the old Baltic Flour Mill. This protected bird species had nested at the Baltic for many years and had to be moved to specially built nesting areas further down the river. During construction, the "Kittiwake Tower" was erected temporarily at the Baltic Flour Mill site. Over 100 birds were nesting on it by March 2001. The structure was then moved half a mile (0.8 kilometers) downstream. Within a few weeks, 100 pairs of birds had moved onto the tower in its new location.

The Kittiwake Plight

They used to nest in the Baltic Flour Mills but have been driven off by the cultural aspirations of Gateshead. Gateshead Council provided a nesting tower but this has been moved down river. As the residential development of the river banks gathers pace; "move on and take your mess and noise with you", seems to be the message to these unfortunate birds. There is now an international awareness of the plight of the Kittiwake. The poor breeding success of the Kittiwake, has been used as a trigger to close part of the North Sea’s sandeel fishery in a move which is long overdue, says the RSPB. A succession of bad breeding years, a shortage in sandeels combined with an increase in their main predator, the great skua, has meant the number of Kittiwakes has almost halved in the last 17 years.

In Northern Scotland the number of breeding pairs has dropped from 54,600 in 1981 to 23,000 in 1998 according to a report by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee in Aberdeen, published in the journal 'Atlantic Seabirds'. If this trend continues the species could disappear within the next 20 yearsThe renovation of the Baltic Flour Mill on the Gateshead side of the Tyne took away access to a Kittiwake breeding site on Tyneside.

Now, in response to complaints from local residents about the mess and noise from Kittiwakes, Newcastle City Council is considering netting the Tyne Bridge to prevent nesting.

Kittiwakes first scouted the Bridge as a potential nest site in 1996. In 1997 two nests on the bridge produced two young birds. In 1998 there were 13 successful nests on the Bridge, this figure increasing to 39 in 1999, and to 82 in 2000.
It is clear that the Bridge has become an important breeding site for these birds. Whilst there are of course much larger breeding colonies in the UK, the Tyne Bridge is the furthest inland breeding site for Kittiwakes in the world.

The netting of many other local nest sites by their private owners makes it increasingly important that the Tyne Bridge site remains available to nesting Kittiwakes.

[Ref: BBC News]

Situated on the south bank of the River Tyne in Saltmeadows, the specially designed tower supports this imporant breeding colony of the gull, which is normally confined to coastal cliffs. The birds on the Tyne are believed to nest further inland than any other kittiwake colony in Britain.

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