Climate Change and Migration

This morning I went out very early as I wanted to get down to the river bank. There is a secret location, on private land where I have permission to go, where I stand a good chance of seeing the Otters. But this morning it was very cold, frost flecked the ground in places, so I was extra careful as I approached the river. By being extra careful meant that I spotted faint marks in the frosted leaves that upon closer inspection looked like an otter had passed that way recently.

Therefore I was quite hopeful of a sighting if the otter was still around. I set up the camera but even changing the battery the video would not power up. When I got home I found what the problem was and it is now working fine, but I was disappointed at the time. I had fully recharged the batteries so I assumed the problem was with the camera. So I just sat back and enjoyed the delights that came my way.

First was a dipper, then there was a kingfisher that was flying up and down the river, looking for a good spot to fish from. One of the two spots that it was fishing from looks accessible to film from latter. Then there was a group of Grey Wagtails. A couple of times I heard slashes and while looking to see if it was the otter or otters, I saw a water vole, Ratty from Wind in the Willows. Always a delight to see, but more so since I discovered it is the fastest declining mammal in Britain.

As I scanned the banks and the river with binoculars, I spotted what I thought was a dead Emperor Dragonfly, while I had seen a slight movement I thought it was just the wind. But as I kept on scanning I realised that it was still alive, moribund but still clinging to life and the rock it was on. While the sun was illuminating its perch the air temperature was far to cold to enable it to fly. I suspect that it will have died today.

I stayed for many hours, but I did not see any otters. Had the weather been warmer, I would have stayed longer, but even though I was well wrapped up, I was getting very cold. So I headed off home. When I got home, I looked at the camera and quickly discovered why the camera was not powering up. A bit of leaf had got on to one of the contacts thus when I fitted the battery it was effectively insulating the contact stopping the power from battery. Contact cleaned the camera worked. It was to dark for me to see the problem first thing but, at least I know to look for something like that should it ever happen again.

While it had not been my plan, my plans are superbly adaptable, I was back in time to hear most of the BBC radio programme The World on the Move. I do get the podcast of this from I tunes every week, it is nice to hear this when its broadcast. For all my overseas reader (that's deliberately singular) it is worth visiting the website and listening to the podcast as this is very much a project that is about the migrations of species across the planet not just Britain.

Anyway, there was two items on today's programme that caught my ear. The first was about Red Admiral butterflies. Because of the changes that have already occurred, there are now some that no longer migrating into continental Europe, but are staying here in Britain. Before, I go on last year I heard that someone at the BBC filmed Red Admiral butterflies courting in the autumn. Now I can beat that as in October 2006, a year before the BBC did it, I filmed the same behaviour. See the film below.

Anyway, the other item was about lesser Black Backed Gulls. Because of climate change these birds are not leaving Britain either but are now just moving in land. This has the effect of enabling them to breed earlier. This will also impact the breeding success of other birds. In addition to this, in the news on Monday was a report that the Waterfowl and Wetland Trust are growing increasingly concerned that Whoppers Swans are delaying their migration to the UK by a week because of the changes in the climate. As climate it not the same as weather, should there be a cold snap it could kill the birds before they can get to their wintering grounds. And there is evidence that this is happening.

There is evidence that other birds are being effected by Climate change, many birds are starting to breed earlier in Britain as the warmer weather triggers their breeding. But as the insects that most of them rely upon start their breeding based upon day length, that difference has the effect of reducing the numbers of birds that survive to breeding age.

While I know that sounds like a disaster, I hope that people help the birds by feeding them all year round.