A SURVEY into the State of the UK’s Birds 2017 (SUKB) – has found that many species are already being affected by climate change, responding to UK average summer temperatures increasing by nearly 1 degree Centigrade since the 1980s.
The report highlights how species’ distributions are moving northwards as temperatures rise and their habitats change as a consequence.
Many of the rarer breeding birds are now at a high risk of extinction in the UK, based on projections of how climate will become less suitable for these species.
These birds are mainly found in the north of the UK and in many cases, such as for the dotterel, whimbrel, common scoter, and Slavonian grebe, population declines have already been considerable.
However, the report contains better news for some birds.
A number of species that currently only have a toe-hold in the UK will have opportunities for colonisation and range expansion.
Some with southerly distributions in the UK have shown substantial increases in recent years, including quail, little egret, hobby, and Mediterranean gull.
Other species such as little bittern and zitting cisticola may colonise southern Britain using the UK as a refuge as their home in continental Europe becomes too warm and dry and they shift their distribution northwards.
Short-distance migrants such as blackcaps and chiffchaffs are already benefiting from the warmer, wetter winters the UK has experienced over recent years and are increasingly overwintering here rather than migrating to southern Europe.
They are also expanding northwards in the UK and into higher altitudes to breed, as the climatic conditions become more favourable in these places.
