Birds are a litmus test of rapidly changing climate

Dotterel (Henry Cook)

Wales-wide drought, major moorland and grass fires, unprecedented heatwaves and warnings of food supply impacts should leave no one in doubt about accelerating climate change. A recent report by the British Trust for Ornithology and the RSPB shows how it is rapidly reshaping the UK’s bird populations, highlighting that seabirds and upland breeding species are the most vulnerable, compounded by unrelated factors such as continuing habitat degradation and human disturbance.

While ‘generalists’ and Mediterranean bird species are expanding northwards, Wales’ place on the edge of the European continent means several are at risk of national extinction, and others potentially from the whole of the UK. Dotterels, a wader that nests on the boulder plateaux of Scottish mountains, have declined by 89% since monitoring started in the late 1980s, and although. We know little about the larger but unmonitored Dotterel populations in Scandinavia and northern Siberia, but as the Arctic Circle recorded its hottest June on record and parts of northern Russia were 38° Celsius last week, there are real concerns about the impacts on birds breeding there.

National Trust has called on the UK government to treat nature as critical national infrastructure, putting investment in peatlands, wetlands and other habitats on a par with transport and energy because of the protection they provide for people, property and the economy, including farming.

The BTO/RSPB report emphasises the importance of well-managed areas designated for nature as refuges for birds under pressure and ‘landing sites’ for colonising species, making the landscape more resilient in the face of climate chaos. Wales has much to do: resource constraints at Natural Resources Wales mean that the condition of around half the wildlife features in our Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) is unknown, and for only 10% is it favourable. In a report earlier this year, the Interim Environmental Protection Assessor for Wales called on Welsh Government “to devote sufficient resources to provide for effective management of sites now and for ongoing monitoring to enable decisions to be made on future management”.

Rarity of the week was a Pectoral Sandpiper found at RSPB Conwy on Monday, while a summer-plumage Great Northern Diver at Porth Colmon was an unseasonal sighting. A Quail continued to sing at Cemlyn over the weekend, but there were no new arrivals in what was almost certainly the biggest summer for this species since record-breaking numbers in 1989.