England’s most important tern colonies are showing signs of recovery after being hit by years of bird flu, flooding and increasingly unpredictable weather, new figures from the National Trust reveal.

The trust reported record numbers of little terns at Long Nanny in Northumberland, one of the UK’s most important breeding sites for what is the country’s second-rarest breeding seabird.

Numbers are also slightly up for arctic terns, the long distance superstars of the avian world that annually breed in places such as Northumberland before making the incredible journey south to Antarctica.