3 minute read
Wildlife Chris Sperring MBE
The mild autumn weather has its hidden dangers
I CAN’T believe it: another year has gone racing by. The question I’m asking myself is it’s nearly Christmas so do the birds need feeding or not? I’m writing this article on November 11th and the temperature outside is 19°C. By now I at least expect to be feeding the birds once again in the garden, but none seem interested. A speckled wood butterfly flies around the garden and many wasps are still gathering around the last of the flowering ivy, who are in turn joined by European honeybees, who are probably from a local hive.
Pinching myself because of unseasonal weather is now becoming so regular that I’m beginning to hurt. Yet, however nice it might be, the delayed shutdown of insects and others due to no frost and above average temperatures may be extremally problematic as the winter progresses.
Birds such as redwing that visit us in the winter from their more northerly breeding areas such as Iceland and Scandinavia are less numerous and this will be simply because it’s still very mild in the north as well. Dwindling food supplies will get them moving south but, as has been found in recent years, less are needing to make the journey.
This, too, is a dangerous manoeuvre, because the aforementioned insects need to shut down; a queen wasp, for example, that wakes through the winter will be using up vital food stores and energy during mild winters, because there will be cold days or very cold snaps which give them a false indication that winter has finally started only to wake again in more mild conditions within days or a week.
The chances then for that queen to survive the winter and start a fresh colony in the spring are hampered. Many of you are probably thinking “great” because you don’t like wasps, but some wild bees will be going through the same issues as the wasp.
For birds that stay in the north and risk not heading south, their problem will be that winter will come and hit hard at some stage. Indeed, as my friends in central Sweden say, the pattern recently has been for unusually mild weather up until January or February when winter seems to be lasting then into early spring. So, the birds that stay will get caught out.
Christmas and New Year are a time when people like to go for walks and
By CHRIS SPERRING MBE
maybe, if you do, you will come across a singing bird. Actually, there are a few birds that can sing in the winter but of course the one I’m thinking of is the robin, and what an incredible bird it is for this time of year.
It may be dull and dank, with little or no sunshine, but the robin is always bright, colourful and loud. As we approach the longest night (shortest day) spare a thought for the robin and birds of equal and smaller size, for, weighing only a few grammes, they have to go through a 14-hour period of night time with very slight chances of feeding so will lose a gramme or two overnight. Meaning, of course.
When it finally does get cold, our robins will have to puff up their feathers to prevent their body heat from leaving their bodies just to keep warm.
So, the image of the Christmas robin looking fat on the Christmas card is not the image of over-indulgence, but in fact one of them desperately trying to keep warm.
I would like to wish all the Mendip Times readers a safe, warm, and very happy Christmas.
A rare chance to feed in a snowy midwinter Bright, colourful – and loud
