According to the Royal Society for Protection of Birds, the Warden on Coquet Island, reports that returning terns and kittiwakes have avoided areas where breeding birds died as a result of H5N1 avian influenza in 2022.  In one colony on the 15-acre island located two miles off the coast of the County of Northumberland in northeast England have established new nesting areas. 

The island is a protected sanctuary for puffins, four species of terns, Eider Ducks and black- headed gulls.  Many thousands of birds died of HPAI during the summer of 2022 and their chicks succumbed from starvation.  During late April 2023 avian influenza was diagnosed in nesting birds on Farne Island, approximately 20 miles north of Coquet Island for the second consecutive year.

Unlike outbreaks of avian influenza in previous years, the 2021 to 2022 panornitic of H5N1 resulted in heavy losses among numerous species of migratory, marine and terrestrial birds over four continents with the prospect of additional losses in 2023.