The Rockablog comes out of hibernation early this year with some great news - the Rockabill conservation project has been nominated for a prestigious award - a Natura 2000 award!
The better news? You can help us win, and it'll only take 10 seconds!
***Just click this link to vote, enter your email address, and click the link in the email, and you're done!***
For those of you who have voted, you have our heartfelt thanks! It's the 30th year of the Rockabill conservation project, and winning this award would be a great way to mark that milestone. I do however understand if there are some of you who need a bit more convincing, so in the coming weeks we'll have a number of blogs, each with a new (and very convincing) reason as to why you should give Rockabill your vote!
Reason #1 - Roseate Tern numbers have skyrocketed as a direct result of the Rockabill conservation project.
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| Roseate Terns on Rockabill. Photo by B Burke, taken under NPWS license. |
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| Roseate Tern chick. Photo by B. Burke, picture taken under NPWS license. |
When the project began in 1989 there was only 189 pairs of Roseate Terns on Rockabill, and less than 500 in Ireland and the UK in total. Fast-forward to 2017 and we had over 1,600 pairs on Rockabill - ten times what we started with. And for a bird that only lays 1 or 2 eggs each year, that's an amazing result! Take a look at the graph below - you just don't see population trends like that anywhere, especially over such a long period, but the Rockabill Roseate Tern population has been going up and up and up thanks to years of conservation efforts.
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| Roseate Tern numbers since the start of the Rockabill conservation project - that kind of upward trend is very very rare in conservation! |
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| Adult and fledgling Roseate Tern. Photo by B. Burke, picture taken under NPWS license. |
The Rockabill population now represents 85% of the north-west European population of Roseate Terns and Rockabill has helped secure the future of the species in this part of the world - surely that's worth a vote?! Rockabill has been described as the 'Roseate Tern factory' of Europe.
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| Adult and fledgling Roseate Terns on Rockabill. Photo by B Burke |
