Birds suffering from climate change

Climate change is wreaking havoc among Staffordshire's bird population, the county council says. It says changes in the weather are causing major disruptions to nesting and migration patterns around Stafford and Cannock.

And environment officers say this will make their job of managing the county's wildlife-rich areas harder as the effects of the bird's behaviour filters through the eco-system. The news comes after a report published by the RSPB on Friday found that swallows are finding it increasingly difficult to cope in the UK.

The RSPB says they are losing out in the race for local food sources – and the situation is made worse at the other end of their journeys, where climate change-generated drought is taking its toll.

In Staffordshire, birdwatchers say patterns of bird life are changing too. As the weather warms, rare upland birds like the twite are moving north and out of the county, only to be replaced by southern birds like the cettis warbler and nightjar, which have been appearing on heathlands like Cannock Chase.

With the warmer weather, birds are also nesting earlier. At first glance, this might not appear to be a bad thing but, according to the county council, cold spring rains have wiped out their early families and put pressure on the birds to breed again later in the summer.

And with the nesting season extending at both ends of the year, this has knock-on effects for managing and protecting wildlife. Staffordshire's cabinet member for the environment, Councillor John Wakefield, said the the news should matter to all residents and not just local 'twitchers'.

He said: "Bird troubles are an early warning system that all is not well for the natural systems that we depend on. Nature has always had to adapt to change but the difference here is the speed of adaptation.

"It is not just bird life. Bees are having a terrible time and the meteorological chaos is wreaking havoc with butterflies and if the pollinators don't pollinate, the farmers have got problems. It's all linked," he said.

Councillor Wakefield added that the council's contribution to tackling the problem included reducing its CO2 emissions by 80 per cent before 2050.