Climate change poses problem to Rutland's Ospreys, says local bird-expert
The County's world-famous Birdfair returns next week
Continued climate change is creating a challenge for some of Rutland's birds, according to a local ecologist.
With Rutland's world-famous Birdfair set to return next week after a three-year's worth of cancelled events, thousands of birdwatchers from all over the globe will be keen to catch a glimpse of the Manton Bay Ospreys.
But, Dale Martin, an ecologist from Pioneer Environment, says unpredictable weather patterns pose a problem to the species.
"They get some warm weather where they're over wintering, and the winds blowing in the right direction and everything's in the right condition - they might migrate and get here and it turns out we've had a very unpredictable spring and we've suddenly got a snowstorm.'
'You'll see early spring when maybe there's eggs laid upon the nest and it should be nice spring weather and suddenly you've got really unpredictable snowstorms coming through and Osprey's trying to protect their eggs; obviously that can affect the survival rates of these nests and of birds like that.'
'Another problem is that, not only is the weather affecting them, the weather is affecting prey species of these birds.'
A wider impact
Climate change isn't just impacting on Rutland's most-known birds, with unpredictable weather affecting plenty of others too.
'If it happens too often and you get regular bouts of rain when you used to have relatively dry weather or visa versa then that can start affecting species. So species like the Barn Owl for example, they can't fly in the rain they can't hunt in the rain', said Mr Martin.
'With the climate warming up we are getting generally warmer temperatures much earlier in Spring.'
He added: 'Lots of species are nesting earlier if they're local species and you also find that migratory species are arriving and singing earlier every single year. So species like Whitethroat that sing in our hedgerows in arable farmland are now singing much earlier in the year and trying to find mates earlier in the year.'