5 Dec 2017 6:00 AM
London and the south east of
England are on the front line of climate change in the UK, with the region’s
birds already reacting to an apparent one degree rise in average summer
temperatures since the 1980’s.
Most species are moving north to
remain in their comfort zone, meaning some European species, like the hoopoe,
little bittern and zitting cisticola are likely to become resident in the not
too distant future.
My daughter thinks the zitting
cisticola sounds like an unpleasant disease, but it’s a small warbler, which
builds nests like cups in long grass, mostly near water. It makes a sound like
the snipping of scissors. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before we get
records of breeding zitting cisticola’s in wet grasslands along the Thames
Estuary!
The findings are from the latest
analysis of bird surveys and monitoring data called the State of the UK’s
Birds (SUKB). It’s produced by a coalition of three NGOs: the Royal
Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the British Trust for Ornithology
(BTO) and the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT), together with the UK’s
statutory nature conservation bodies: Department of Agriculture, Environment
and Rural Affairs Northern Ireland (DAERA), the Joint Nature Conservation
Committee (JNCC), Natural England (NE) and Natural Resources Wales (NRW).
That’s enough of the acronyms (8 AMBAR*).
