As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Tuesday 2 December 2014

Warm weather leads to a surge in 2014 bird-breeding numbers

The warm weather which graced Britain in the spring and summer resulted in a bumper bird breeding season, according to an ornithological trust.

Experts at the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) say that although not all the UK’s summer migrants returned to take advantage of the clement conditions, those that did saw success.

The upturn in breeding was shown by data collected by hundreds of survey participants for the Nest Record Scheme (NRS) and Constant Effort Site (CES) ringing scheme.

Carl Barimore, NRS organiser, said: “This season was a real contrast to 2013’s cold start with the fine spring weather encouraging many species to begin laying their eggs one to two weeks earlier than average.

“As the warm weather continued into summer, many songbirds produced above average numbers of young. Voles were also abundant, and species like tawny owl, barn owl and kestrel that depend on them all had the most productive season on record, producing between 20pc and 40pc more young than average.”

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