Terrific Tern Territories
We’re raising funds to give terns a place to call home
We need your help to raise £5,300 for two tern rafts at our Shorncote nature reserve by November.
The aim is to attract more terns to safely and successfully breed in a place where visitors can also enjoy this wildlife spectacle.
Our crowdfunding goal – at a glance
- Purchase tern rafts and materials
- Prepare tern rafts for deployment, including predator protection and creating nesting habitat
- Launch and anchor tern rafts at Shorncote by the spring
Our hope is to have two tern rafts in place by spring 2027, when the terns migrate back to the UK and the breeding season begins.
To make that happen, we need your help to raise £5,300 by November.
If we exceed our fundraising target, this project is scalable – we know there is more need, so we will simply buy more rafts for our nature reserves.
Follow our progress and help spread the word on our socials using #CotswoldLakesTerns:
Why tern rafts?
Terns are often seen at our nature reserves, but we have few suitable nesting sites that are safe from ground predators like fox, badger and mink, which take the eggs and chicks of ground nesting birds. Terns also have to compete with other ground-nesting birds.
Because of the shortage of attractive natural breeding sites at our nature reserves, we want to help more terns to breed and to increase their breeding success, by installing two tern rafts.
The rafts will be floated and securely anchored at our Shorncote reserve and will be a safe haven for the terns, away from terrestrial predators. They also provide safe roosting sites.
We will add a mix of shingle and shells to these rafts so that they mimic the natural shingle islands they would use for nesting. Side panels will prevent fox and mink scaling the rafts to steal terns’ eggs. We will also provide simple wooden ‘tents’ for shelter.
Terns naturally nest in colonies so a number of pairs will nest on a single raft.
What we’ll do – with your help
We will:
- install at least two tern rafts at Shorncote Reedbeds (Lake 84)
- equip the tern rafts with shelter, shingle for nesting, and predator protection
- have the rafts in position ready for the 2027 breeding season
What difference will it make?
- Improved breeding success for terns
Providing protection from predators, terns will be able to breed more safely, and more breeding attempts will be successful, increasing the population. Roosting and loafing terns will also be protected - Accessible wildlife spectacles for our visitors
Positioned within easy viewing distance of hides, yet far enough away to avoid disturbance, the rafts will enable many local residents and visitors to enjoy the fascinating wildlife spectacles of tern colonies from nearby vantage points.
