48 pieces · AnimalsPhoto by El Golli Mohamed, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. A little tern (Sternula albifrons) settled on a sandy scrape at Thyna, Tunisia — the species that broke its UK breeding record at Long Nanny in Northumberland in 2026, photographed on a Mediterranean shore rather than at the English colony.
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Britain's Second-Rarest Seabird Just Had Its Best Year on Record
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Britain's Second-Rarest Seabird Just Had Its Best Year on Record
The little tern is a small, sharp-winged seabird that nests directly on open shingle and sand, which is close to the worst possible life strategy on a crowded coastline. It is the United Kingdom's second-rarest breeding seabird and has been in long-term decline. So the figures the National Trust released at the end of September 2026 were genuinely startling: at Long Nanny on the Northumberland coast, at least 126 pairs nested this season — more than double the site's previous record of 57 pairs, set back in 1994. At least 82 chicks are known to have fledged, and rangers think the final total may have passed a hundred.
The recovery was not confined to one beach. At Blakeney Point in Norfolk, 1,164 pairs of Sandwich terns bred after two seasons in which the species had failed to nest there at all, and common and Arctic terns increased too. Back at Long Nanny — where avian flu devastated the Arctic tern colony in 2023, and where recent years brought nests lost to high spring tides and extreme weather — rangers counted a minimum of 730 active Arctic tern nests holding 1,346 eggs, slightly up on last year. The National Trust credits practical, unglamorous protection for the turnaround: fencing to keep out predators such as foxes, refuge areas set aside for breeding birds, and tighter restrictions on dogs through the nesting season. The charity was careful to say there is no room for complacency — Arctic terns were recently added to the UK's Red List of Birds of Conservation Concern, and numbers on the nearby Farne Islands fell again this year. But a record is still a record.
The photograph is a little tern settled low on a sandy scrape, which is exactly how the species nests: no structure, no shelter, just a shallow depression in open ground. As a jigsaw it is a study in one small subject against a huge field of texture. Build the bird first — the black cap, the white forehead blaze and the yellow bill are the only strong colours anywhere in the image, and the long dark primaries sweeping back past the tail give you a clean diagonal line to follow. After that, the blurred band of water across the top is your second anchor, because it is the only smooth region in the frame. Everything else is sand, and the way through it is to stop hunting for colour and start reading focus: grains are crisp and pebbly near the bird, and dissolve into softness toward the edges, so a piece that is too sharp or too blurry for where you are placing it belongs somewhere else entirely.
How to play
- Tap Play A Record Season for the Little Tern puzzle to open the puzzle board, then choose your piece count and difficulty.
- Drag pieces from the tray onto the board and snap them into place until the full image is complete. Works with mouse on desktop and touch on mobile.
- Use the Preview button on the play screen to peek at the full reference image whenever you need a hint.
- When you finish, check your solve time on the completion screen and share it with friends to see who can beat your record.
Frequently asked questions
- What record was broken in 2026?
- At Long Nanny on the Northumberland coast, at least 126 pairs of little terns nested during the 2026 breeding season — more than double the site's previous record of 57 pairs, which had stood since 1994. At least 82 chicks are known to have fledged, and rangers suggested the eventual figure could be more than a hundred. The National Trust announced the results at the end of September 2026.
- How rare is the little tern in Britain?
- It is the UK's second-rarest breeding seabird and has experienced significant long-term declines across the country. Part of the problem is where it chooses to nest: little terns lay on open sand and shingle just above the tideline, which leaves eggs and chicks exposed to spring tides, storms, foxes and human disturbance all at once.
- Was it only little terns that did well?
- No. At Blakeney Point in Norfolk, 1,164 pairs of Sandwich terns nested after two seasons in which the species had not bred there at all, and common and Arctic terns also increased. At Long Nanny there were a minimum of 730 active Arctic tern nests containing 1,346 eggs, slightly up on the previous year. The National Trust still warned against complacency, noting that Arctic terns have been added to the UK's Red List and that numbers on the Farne Islands fell this year.
- Was this photograph taken at the Northumberland colony?
- No. It shows the same species — a little tern, Sternula albifrons, on a sandy scrape — but it was photographed at Thyna in Tunisia, on the Mediterranean coast, rather than at Long Nanny. We publish only openly licensed images, and this one is by El Golli Mohamed under a CC BY-SA 4.0 licence via Wikimedia Commons, credited beneath the picture.