Bird flu update from Islay, October 2022

The bird flu virus has had catastrophic effects on the UK’s breeding seabirds this summer, causing thousands of deaths and affecting the whole coast of the UK. Particularly badly affected were gannets, great skuas and terns. Overall, over sixty species of birds have tested positive, including six species of raptor.

Once breeding finished, the seabirds dispersed, and since then we have not had any major outbreaks. Bird flu is still very much with us however, with a steady stream of incidents in wild birds across the UK. Our migratory wading birds, geese and ducks are now returning for the winter, and the risk is either that they bring the disease with them or that they catch it from birds here that already have it. Worryingly, two hundred dead Greenland barnacle geese have been reported in Iceland, which is the staging area on their route to Britain and Ireland.

Here on Islay, we don’t know what the autumn will bring. The barnacle and white fronted geese are arriving from Greenland, on Friday 10,000 arrived and then yesterday the wind turned to the north and more were flooding in. This morning I counted 24,200 barnacle geese and 113 white fronted geese on the reserve. It is always an exciting time on the reserve, perhaps tarnished a little this year with the apprehension of how many geese will return and will they return with bird flu. So far, the numbers look good, it is still too early to see how many young they have with them and get a bigger picture of the population.

We have not seen any sick birds yet. We have all the Personal Protective Equipment ready, and the name of the game just now is lots of monitoring to build up a picture of what has happened on the breeding and staging grounds.

James How, Senior Site Manager Islay Reserves