Gamekeepers Count 70% Rise in Merlin Chicks on North York Moors

Quick summary

• Keepers counted 46 merlin fledglings and 51 breeding adults this summer, up from 27 and 32 in 2025.

• The count is in its eighth year and now covers over 90% of the national park's moorland.

• Hot, dry weather spared nests from wet spells, but several keepers found chicks dead from heat stress.

• A 27-year Langholm Moor study found merlin breeding success two to three times higher under grouse moor management.

Keepers recorded 46 merlin fledglings this summer, up from 27 last year, in the eighth year of a survey that now covers almost all of the national park's moorland.

Gamekeepers on the North York Moors counted 46 merlin fledglings and 51 breeding adults this summer, up from 27 fledglings and 32 adults in 2025. It is the eighth year of an annual count run by keepers themselves.

The 70% rise in fledglings makes 2026 the strongest season since 2022, though not a record. Both 2021 and 2022 were better, with 59 breeding adults in each. Across eight years the count has averaged around 45 fledglings.

It covers well over 90% of the national park's moorland. Fylingdales, which has no keeper, is the only significant gap. George Thompson, a semi-retired gamekeeper, phones every keeper each year and asks what they found.

At least 12 of this year's fledglings were ringed by ringers registered with the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), which means a proportion of the birds counted this summer can be identified again if they are found elsewhere.

George Thompson said: "It is a phone call to every keeper on the moors, one at a time, and they tell me what they had on their ground. I will not claim there are more merlin than there were. What I can say is that we know what is here now, and another ten years of this will tell us the rest."

The season fell in the hottest summer on record. Merlin here are usually set back by cold, wet spells while chicks are still in the nest, and there has been no such spell for two breeding seasons running.

The heat brought its own losses. Several keepers found chicks dead in nests abandoned after the surviving chicks had fledged, with no sign of predation and put it down to heat stress and drought. Those birds are not included in the figures.

One keeper found an abandoned egg near a water hole and took it to the falconry centre at Duncombe Park to see whether it could be incubated. It did not hatch.

Merlin nest on the ground in deep heather. A national survey of more than 1,000 nest records found 87.5% of breeding areas were on five types of moorland, with 77% of nests on the ground, 19% in old stick nests in trees and 2% on crags.

A long study in the Lammermuir Hills put the figure higher still, at more than 96% of nests on the ground. Wherever merlin breed on open hill, eggs and chicks are within reach of foxes and crows.

A 27-year study at Langholm Moor in southwest Scotland found breeding success for merlin and hen harrier ran two to three times higher under grouse moor management. Fox abundance was 65% lower and carrion crow 62% lower.

The pattern held only for birds nesting on the ground. Management made no difference to peregrine, buzzard or raven, which nest in trees and on crags. The paper is co-authored by scientists from the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust and the RSPB.

Britain holds roughly 1,100 breeding pairs of merlin. The North York Moors is a Special Protection Area, with merlin and golden plover the species that triggered the designation, and around 3% of the UK breeding population of both lives here.

The clearest long-term threat is the loss of open hill. Research suggests territories need a minimum of around 20 square kilometres of grass and heather moorland to stay viable, and blanket afforestation cuts into that.

Andrew Gilruth, Chief Executive of the Moorland Association said: "The duty to look after merlin on the North York Moors rests with the people who own and manage the land, and this count is the fullest record of these birds that anyone holds. It was gathered by gamekeepers, in their own time, on ground they work every day."