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Countryman Diary - February 2009
Two poor summers have not only caused problems for the British countryside’s tourist industry but our native wildlife has also suffered, a new report by the National Trust reveals.
Matthew Oates, one of the trust’s nature conservation advisors, told me:
“A cold late spring, a wet summer, with few sunny days, and the long dry autumn has shown how dependent our wildlife is on the weather. Many iconic species closely associated with the four seasons are having to cope with a higher incidence of poor weather as our climate becomes more unpredictable.”
There have been far more wildlife losers than winners: insects have been hit particularly hard by the increasing number of adverse weather events, thought to be as a result of climate change.
It was a poor breeding season for birds, particularly the tit family and coastal birds. The wet weather has also affected small plants and invertebrates as they’ve been squeezed out by dense grass growth.
Matthew adds: “After two very poor years in a row we desperately need a good summer in 2009, otherwise its going to look increasingly grim for a wealth of wildlife in the UK. Climate change is not some future prediction of what might happen, it’s happening now and having a serious impact on our countryside every year.”
Here are some of the trust’s observations:
January
Red admirals continue to be the first butterfly sightings of the year.
Snowdrops and crocuses were coming out earlier than normal.
February
The sunniest since 1929 and white-tailed bumblebees were flying on many days, and even at times during January.
March
Easter fell early and in England this coincided with the worst of the cold weather.
The large tortoiseshell butterfly, which was thought to be extinct in the UK, has bred successfully on NT land in south Devon, with other sightings recorded along the South Coast.
April
A cold and wet month with some frost and snow hit bees hard.
In mid-April the first chough eggs were laid in south Wales, though a week later than usual.
May
Heavy rain occurred late on, a critical time for early summer insects, such as the marsh fritillary butterfly which suffered a second consecutive bad flight season.
Many nests failed (including those of the blue and great tits), due to the lack of insect food and foul weather.
June
Coastal cliff nesting birds, such as choughs, kittiwakes and razorbills, bred late and reared few young.
It was a poor summer for migrant insects — butterflies, moths, hoverflies, ladybirds and dragonflies — due to the wet and cold weather.
July
A good year for the purple emperor butterfly until this large canopy-living butterfly was hit by a vicious gale in early July.
Nightjars only managed to raise one youngster instead of two.
Puffin numbers on the Farne Islands were down by thirty-five per cent in five years.
August
This was another year with an absence of the enemy of the English picnic, the wasp, due to the poor weather hindering nest development.
The two cabbage white butterflies (large and small) were unusually plentiful as their predators were depleted by poor weather.
Crickets and grasshoppers were in low numbers, and scarcely sang all month. Bats saw their staple food, insects, seriously affected by the heavy summer rain.
September
There was a remarkable and perhaps unprecedented scarcity of the common autumn cranefly. This insect
usually abounds in pest proportions but was all but absent this year.
Small tortoiseshell butterflies were scarce all summer in southern England, though their numbers picked up a little.
October
Snow settled in London for the first October since 1934. A cold and wet month, after another poor summer, sealed the fate of our bees.
It was another classic year for autumn colour with the leaves turning perfectly at many NT sites.
A fantastic season for fungi.
Twenty-six stunning species of waxcap, including the very rare olive earth tongue, were found at Tyntesfield in Somerset.
November
A surprising number of spring flowers, such as vibernum and aubretia, bloomed in gardens. Roses and other perennials flowered at Knightshayes Court in Devon, confused by the cold summer and warm autumn.
There has been a wealth of berries on mistletoe this year.
An otter made it to the Farne Islands in the North Sea for the first time on record despite the storms and gales.
December
Radio tracking of lesser horseshoe bats did not take place in North Wales, due to many being underweight as a result of low insect numbers. This might have a detrimental effect on winter survival rates for all bat species.
These observations on NT land will no doubt be echoed by other organisations around the country.
On my travels I have noticed over the last two years a decline in songbirds, a greater number of badgers and deer killed on the roads, more hedgerows being destroyed and new building creeping onto green land.
There may not be a great deal we can fashion that will have any immediate effect on the weather but there is certainly a lot more we can do to help preserve our precious countryside and wildlife.
Editor's Blog
I hope you like our revamped website. We’ll be adding further developments throughout 2009 and the first new feature you’ll notice is the addition of an editor’s blog. I’ll be sharing my views and countryside observations with you on a weekly basis and hoping that you’ll also add your own comments about what’s happening in your part of the world. There’s also a fantastic album of readers’ photographs to enjoy as well as easy ways of subscribing to the magazine and buying other products.
Competition winners
The ten winners of the Gervase Phinn competition in the December issue were:
Mrs Felicity O’Neill, Bangor, Co Down; J F Abercrombie, British
Columbia, Canada; Mrs J Gilbert, Exeter; Mrs J L Hawkins, Ludham, Great Yarmouth; Mrs R Redding, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire; Mrs Linda Holdstock, Newick, nr Lewes; Mrs J Allen, Barnetby-le-Wold, Lincolnshire; G M Bradfield, Guildford, Surrey; Ian Perkins, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire; Mrs E Morley, Thirsk, North Yorkshire.
Paul Jackson |
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