Efforts are being redoubled to discover the cause of Purbeck’s dwindling puffin population before it is too late for the iconic seabirds who spend the summer at Dancing Ledge in Dorset.
A thriving colony of more than 80 birds just three generations ago, has now fallen to only half a dozen. No fledglings have been raised in the last three years and it is not even guaranteed that all six Purbeck puffins will return in spring 2026 after severe winter storms.
Only four puffins had returned to Dancing Ledge by mid March 2026 and there are fears that the colony could soon be lost
High tech cameras where the birds nest
On Friday 20th March 2026, a team of high rope experts commissioned by the National Trust, abseiled down the cliffs at Spyway, above Dancing Ledge just along the coast from Swanage, to install high tech cameras where the puffins nest.
A similar scheme in 2024 came up with no answers to explain why no puffin chicks – called pufflings – survived to fledge, although suspicions are that they are being picked off by predators like rats or crows.
Now motion sensitive, solar powered high spec cameras have been installed in secure boxes, angled towards the crevices where the puffins nest, to photograph everything that happens this season in a last ditch attempt to save the colony.
The cameras can store up to 99,999 images, which will be taken every time something moves in their view, even at night – they can take infrared images without creating any kind of flash to scare the birds.
Only four of the Purbeck puffins had returned by mid March 2026, and there are concerns for the remaining two, following reports of thousands of dead puffins washing up on Europe’s beaches during this winter’s storms.
The cliffs south of Spyway, near Dancing Ledge, are where the last puffins on England’s South Coast spend their summers
“Closer to the loss of the colony”
Rivers and coast project officer for the National Trust in Purbeck, Ben Cooke said:
“Our puffins are already under threat and with the colony being so small, if just one of the Purbeck birds were lost to the storms this winter, its mate may not find a new partner and the colony will lose one of its three remaining pairs, another step closer to the loss of the whole colony.
“The puffins spend the winter far out at sea, returning to their nesting sites in late March, so we are waiting with some trepidation to see if all six birds reappear.
“The National Trust has commissioned high ropes experts to install the very latest motion sensor trail cameras on the narrow fissure on the cliffs where the puffins breed.
“A similar exercise we carried out in 2024 captured fascinating insights into the behaviours of puffins and other seabirds, but didn’t reveal why no chicks are surviving to fledge, so we are now learning from those lessons.
“Puffins are now one of the rarest breeding birds in Dorset and in danger of becoming extinct in the county – this is the last remaining colony of puffins on mainland England’s south coast and we need to understand why it is failing to produce chicks.”
In 2024, the cameras attracted a lot of attention from the birds, but didn’t shed any light on the problems they are facing.
Ben Cooke reveals the very latest motion sensitive trail cameras which are being used this year
Time running out for the puffins
There were 85 puffins recorded in Purbeck in 1958, but by 1975 the numbers had reduced to just 23. In 2025 there were only three nesting pairs and no fledglings have been spotted for several years.
In 2023, a team of volunteers from the Purbeck Natural History Forum led by marine ornithologist Richard Caldow saw the puffins carrying fish into their nesting area, only to stop abruptly after just 25 days, suggesting the chicks died suddenly and prematurely.
In 2024 and 2025, adult puffins were seen courting, mating and nest‑building, but no fish deliveries were seen, suggesting that their eggs may not have hatched.
With time running out for the Purbeck puffins, efforts have been stepped up to identify what the problem is and then take urgent steps to solve it.
Marine ornithologist Richard Caldow leads a volunteer group to monitor the puffins
“They could all be gone by 2040”
Richard Caldow said:
“If we are to do anything to help this puffin colony to survive, we need to establish what is going wrong. Puffins were once abundant on this coastline, but the colony has now plummeted to just three pairs.
“Adult puffins typically have a high annual survival rate, so they can live for a long time, but eventually they will die and if they don’t breed successfully, a colony is very likely to dwindle and perhaps die too.
“Puffins can live for 30 to 40 years – these are probably over 20 years old and there is a one in ten chance every year that an individual will die, so sooner or later our six birds will disappear and if they don’t reproduce there will be no new chicks to take their place.
“Some very simple back of an envelope calculations suggest that they could be all gone by 2040 at the latest, perhaps sooner than that.
“Stocks of various small fish such as sardines, sprats and even anchovies have been abundant around these coasts in the last three summers when we have been monitoring the puffins.
“It seems unlikely that a lack of fish has been the puffins’ problem, and our suspicion has long been that predators such as rats or crows are taking the puffin eggs or chicks.”
The high ropes experts set up their station on the cliff edge near Dancing Ledge
An expert high rope team install the latest cameras in the crevices which puffins call home for three months of the year
“Disappear into the gloom”
Richard added:
“Puffins only hatch one chick a year, so even if it all goes very well this season, you would only get three pufflings here.
“They would take four years before they are old enough to come back and breed and in the meantime at least one of those would die and another might decide to nest somewhere else, like Jersey. You can see how long it might take to repopulate the colony here.
“But if we can find out from the cameras what is causing the problem, we can do something about it. The cameras we are fitting this year are solar powered, so they won’t run out of battery, have a huge storage capacity, so they won’t run out of space, and are motion sensitive, so they’ll picture anything that moves down there.
“I have used photographs taken of the puffins to work out exactly where they nest, so we can get the cameras in the right place – they are very faithful to their nest site and will always go to exactly the same space.
“We don’t know how far the crevice goes back into the cliff – possibly several metres – and the puffins bend over double to scuttle deep inside and disappear from view into the gloom, which does make it difficult to work out what is happening.”
One of Purbeck’s few remaining puffins, pictured at Dancing Ledge in 2025
“Such an iconic bird”
Ben Cooke said:
“The work we did in 2024 showed us exactly where the puffins were nesting, so this time we have placed better cameras in key locations to film deeper into the ledge.
“There was some concern that cameras might disturb the puffins, but this wasn’t the case and we actually got 12,000 shots of puffins in front of one camera, and many shots of puffins and other seabirds sitting right beside the other cameras!
“They revealed that our puffins are most active in or near their nests between 5 am and 8 am when human activity is minimal, so we don’t think that coasteering, rock climbing or boating are having any effect on the puffin colony.
“The climbing community has a code of conduct that restricts them from using the cliff during the bird nesting season, and licenced coasteerers are also required to keep away from that area, while boaters are urged to keep a sensible distance from the cliff.
“Puffins are such an iconic bird, we want to do anything in our power to help them survive in Purbeck. We are hugely grateful to Richard Caldow for his tireless efforts in researching the puffins and what might be affecting them, and to his team of volunteers for the hours they spend monitoring them.”
Puffin cameras from 2024 didn’t get the best views into the birds’ cliffs
Further information
- A guide to spotting puffins at Spyway is on the National Trust website
