Hazel dormouse | © Terry Whittaker / 2020VISION
G re a t O u td o o r s - I S S U E 07
Where the wild things go in winter Tom Hibbert of The Wildlife Trusts looks at how animals and birds survive during the winter months, from hibernation and migration to stashing food for a rainy day.
W
inter can be a tough time for wildlife, with cold weather and less food to eat. While they can often benefit from a helping hand, our animals have developed lots of different ways of surviving our harshest season. Some battle it out the best they can, others spend most of it sleeping, and some leave the country completely! Let’s find out what happens to our UK wildlife in winter.
Many Arctic terns go all the way to Antarctica, travelling over 55,000 miles a year
www.FamilyFirst.co.uk
THE LEAVERS If your favourite food is a beakful of tasty insects, winter here can be tricky, as there are far fewer around. Luckily for many of our birds, they have the ultimate strategy for dealing with this – they fly somewhere else that has more food. Every spring, millions of birds come to the UK to nest and take advantage of all the food on offer in summer. In autumn, when it starts to get harder to find food, they leave again. This is known as migration. A lot of these birds are insecteaters that spend the winter in southern Europe or Africa, where it’s warmer and there’s more to eat. The swallows that you see chattering over farms and fields each summer fly as far as South Africa, about 6,000 miles away.
Many of our seabirds are summer visitors too, like the graceful Arctic tern and the bright-billed puffin. These tough birds spend the winter out at sea where they can find more fish to feast on. Puffins can end up out in the Atlantic Ocean, whereas many Arctic terns go all the way to Antarctica, travelling over 55,000 miles a year – the longest migration of any animal. Did you know? Some insects also migrate south in autumn, such as painted lady butterflies, which can get as far as the Sahel region of Africa.
If your favourite food is a beakful of tasty insects, winter here can be tricky
FA M I LY F I R S T - W I N T E R 2 0 2 0 / 21
17
