Bird Flu- A Shetland disaster

 You may have heard that bird flu has struck Shetland and its heart breaking

I have been finding dead birds on Shetland beaches since March. The most in April when i discovered 12 on Grutness and 9 on West Voe. Most of these were Gannets, and a few gulls along with a Guillemot and a Gt Northern Diver

All dead birds should be reported to Defra 0345 9335577, don't touch any birds found

It was on 2 May when a restrictions on domestic birds was lifted and they were allowed outside again. Since then Whalsay has been hit and chickens again have to be inside.

I had a trip round Noss and saw about 20 dead Gannets below the cliffs but up at Hermaness more than a 1000 Gannets have been found dead and lots of Gt Skuas (approx 550) and on Foula (425). Shetland holds the highest population of Gt Skua in the world. As Skua will be feeding on infected dead birds it doesn't look good for this species

I was photographing a Gt Skua flying over and it just fell out of the sky and crashed into the ground. No one is sure yet whether its just seabirds and Skuas. (Including the Long Tailed Skua that had visited Shetland and summered for three years, that seem to be taking the brunt of the virus

So far no one has mentioned Puffins, and although i did find a dozen dead in February which could have died of starvation, much like the NE England wreck

As birds are nesting close together we can expect to see 1,000's more deaths. 

Seabirds are having a bad time of it, with massive declines over the last 25 years although the Gannet population has always increased (60,000 at Hermaness), up to now

Down at the Arctic Tern colony it looks like only 50%of the birds have returned. It will be interesting to see what other birds may be affected although most like waders and passerines don't nest close together and are territorial, so may stand a better chance.

Birds will have migrated through infected area, more recently Aberdeen and Norfolk

We are powerless to do anything, it will just run its course and then we will have to assess its affects on the populations.