One of the Guardian’s editorials today is entitled In praise of… feeding birds in winter:
Feeding birds this month offers a rare chance to see redpolls, yellowhammers and tree sparrows among the robins, finches and tits that more often make up backyard populations. It will also keep them alive. Read
Freezing temperatures aren’t all bad for British wildlife, perfectly adapted to long, cold winters, which until recently were the norm. Cold weather helps to “restore the balance of nature”:
In contrast mild winters such as those we’ve seen between 1986 and 2008 bring about:
Snow Watch are also collecting wildlife stories from people from around the UK. Read them here.
I thought this post by John White was interesting:
We do have a visiting barn owl but have not seen or heard him for some weeks. We have had visiting redpolls and fieldfares taking all the holly berries. Interestingly there have been very few starlings and sparrows around, and a very plump pheasant is missing. I must admit that we do not encourage the larger birds i.e. rooks, crows, jackdaws and magpies, but they still come. It seems that the three squirrels that live in the holly tree have decided to keep warm in their dray, and have not put in an appearance for days. Badgers have taken to the compost for food. They were very active in the autumn feeding off of our fallen fruits and digging up the gardens for slugs etc. Swans and geese that frequent the reservoirs and canals seem to be staying put.
We’ve put together this archive of news about the 2010 cold snap related to wildlife and climate. Hungry bitterns, cold badgers, river ice, English igloos, strange birds in the garden, George Orwell on the cold of 1940, the coldest place in Britain…that sort of thing. Read
The freezing temperatures may have caused the death of thousands of velvet swimming crabs which have been left littering the shoreline in the Thanet area of Kent. So many velvet swimming crabs – or devil crabs, as they are commonly known – have been washed up in Westbrook Bay over the last week that people have struggled in some places to see the sand. More here
This five-day-old badger cub was on the brink of death after being left abandoned in the snow somewhere in Devon. More ridiculously cute photos and the story here
From the excellent badgerland.co.uk:
Badgers have unusual breeding patterns since mating can take place at any time of the year. After mating, badgers exhibit what is known as delayed implantation. They keep the fertilised eggs, in the womb in a state of suspended development until they implant at the end of December. Cubs are usually born during the first fortnight in February in the south and west, but sometimes a little later as you go further north in the UK.
So this cub was born rather early in the year. I wonder if the mother was moving her cubs to a warmer sett and this one got dropped, or did it just remove it from the sett because it couldn’t feed it. Please drop me a mail if you can enlighten me on this.
The RSPB has warned that British wildlife is facing an emergency in the face of the longest period of freezing weather for almost 28 years and the prospect of it continuing well into next week. Birds are most affected as they are finding it impossible to feed, as the ground and many water bodies are frozen solid.
Mark Avery, the RSPB’s director of conservation described the situation as “a wildlife emergency… The long frozen period is even beginning to resemble the winter of 1962-63, which did more damage to Britain’s birds than anything else in our lifetimes.” At the end of that winter, the coldest in the UK in the 20th century, many populations of common birds such as wrens had plummeted to tiny levels, and rare birds were hit even harder: when spring 1963 came, only 11 pairs of Dartford warblers were left in England.
As a result the RSPB is appealing to people everywhere to put out food for birds in their gardens, but it is also going further: for the first time it is attempting emergency feeding for three rare and recovering species: Dartford warbler, found on heathlands, which will be fed on mealworms left on low-level bird tables in Suffolk and Dorset; the cirl bunting, found on farmland in south Devon, which will be fed on grain; and the bittern, to be fed on sprats. More here from The Independent
Meanwhile The Telegraph reports a remarkable 140% increase in sales of wild bird feed at Tescos as Britons pile their bird table high. And finally the RSPB is calling on everyone who enjoys being out in the countryside to take extra care not to disturb flocks of wildfowl and wading birds, during this exceptionally cold spell. Birdwatch