The Boreal Forest

There was a real sense of irony when a couple of days after I was singing the praises of the BBC and the high quality of programmes that the Natural History unit down in Bristol produce, that I had a salesman from Sky knocking at my door. I should explain to my overseas reader that Sky, owned by Rupert Murdock, is the satellite broadcaster over here. Its also a subscription service and while it also carries the free to air services, all the really decent programming you have to pay a high monthly fee for.

Therefore, when the salesman called and was trying to get me signed up, he started to alienate me by criticised the TV licence fee and what he thought was the way that the BBC wasted money on programmes like Life in Cold Blood. Suffice to say that he never got a sale, but nor did I get the information I wanted about how much it would cost me if I wanted to get the Natural History channels. With digital TV only a couple of years away, I will have to do something if I still want to see TV after the analogue switch off.

However, whatever happens I will still have some great radio to listen to. While I promise you that I don't work for the BBC, again I have to sing their praises again. Going back to my teens, I discovered programmes like the Living World and other natural history broadcasting on BBC radio. What the BBC have recently started is not just something new in interactive broadcasting it is also cutting edge science too.

The programme, The World on the Move, is a year long project tracking the migration of birds and animals, not just in the UK and but around the world. What makes this unique is it relies on contributions and observations from listeners via its web site. Also by collaborating with scientists and conservation groups there is some real science happening. Such as learning how much fuel, energy geese need to make their migration flights. Further, by using new technology such as satellite tagging is allowing us to discover where some animals actually go. A good example of this is the picture, its from the entry for the Grasshopper Warbler in a book published in the late 1970s I bought the book in 1980 I think. As can be seen there is a question mark about the wintering grounds in Africa.

However, what this programme has done for me, is to set me on a path of discovery about what happens around the world. Thus I discover that the Boreal Forest in Canada is the breeding nursery for both North and South America. However there is the ubiquitous problem, that of substantial threats to the habitat, placing ninety five percent of the birds under threat and in serious decline.

I just wonder when we will all start to treasure our world and wonder at the beauty it holds for us.

Anyway you can all find the BBC World on the Move Web pages here. And even if you don't live in the UK you can still listen to the programmes on line.

Red Admiral Butterfly

While out the other day I spotted this newly emerged Red Admiral butterfly Vanessa atalanta, although it could fly, it was still drying off its wings near the top of a young oak tree. Until recent years I could have positively said that it will soon be travelling all the way down to the Mediterranean to over winter, but this butterfly could over winter somewhere closer because of the milder winters. It will not breed until the spring.

Climate Change and Bird Populations

While the effect of a warming climate will have many predictable consequences, it is the impacts that the majority of the population don’t think about that are in fact the more serious ones.

In some migrating birds choosing not to winter in the UK, many people will assume that this is just a minor matter. Interesting to note but what will be the impact upon my life, they will say. Well, the impacts could be greater than people assume.

Because of the importance of the UK as wintering grounds our agriculture practices have been modified to accommodate these influxes of birds. This is not just about the crops that are grown but the husbandry of farm animals. When you have large populations of birds migrating to the UK there has to be a food source for them, geese and ducks will help clear large areas of grass, thus reducing the cost of farming these lands. Also some of the birds will feed on grubs and insects that present over winter, keeping that population in check. Who knows what the effect on human and animal health this change will bring.

Further there is the impact upon tourism in the areas where these birds flock; there are many small communities that are reliant upon the tourist pound that the bird’s presence brings.

Then there are the problems for the communities where the birds are now choosing to over winter. Will the birds be competing for valuable or scarce resources? Are they competing with man for these? If the answer to any of these is yes the populations of these many species of birds will be at serious risk.

Climate change is already creating a serious problem for the summer breading populations of sea birds. The warming of the seas is reducing the populations of sand eel’s that so rely on to feed and raise their young. This means that populations of internationally important species are in decline. But its not just the effect upon the birds that this should be causing concern, what about the rest of the food chain and the fish that humans eat? In the North Sea fish stocks are already looking as if they are in terminal decline.

There will be some people who will think that this doesn’t really matter, there are other more important issues to worry about, but the reality is this is the most important issue of the day. Unless we act now, we not only risk causing the mass extinction of animal populations, but our own extinction as well.