Plastic found in 80 per cent of nests belonging to one seabird species on uninhabited island

Debris washed onto island then collected by birds and incorporated into nests, research suggests, writes Samuel Osborne

Herring gulls on Lady Isle (Danni Thompson)

Plastic has been found in 80 per cent of the nests of a species of seabird on an uninhabited island off the coast of Scotland.

Nearly four in 10 (39.1 per cent) of nests surveyed on Lady Isle in the Firth of Clyde contained plastic.

The amount varied between species, with more than a third (35.6 per cent) of herring gull nests, 53.5 per cent of great black-backed gulls and 80 per cent of shags nests containing plastic debris.