Effects of climate change on wildlife
The effects of climate change on the wildlife and wild places we know and love can already be seen.
Read our real-life accounts from around the UK.
Here are just some of the effects of climate change on our birds and wildlife:
- Flowers such as snowdrops are blooming earlier in the spring and oaks are leafing earlier.
- Butterflies are appearing on the wing earlier.
- Migrating birds may have to change their migration routes or the places where they breed or spend winter.
- Wetland birds such as redshank will find their habitats threatened by climate change - saltmarshes will become inundated by the sea while moors and wet grasslands will dry up during hot summers.
- Food shortages are already causing young seabirds to starve to death resulting in dramatic population declines.
- Birds found further south in Europe such as cattle egrets and hoopoes, could colonise southern England.
- Birds may be forced to nest at different times in response to changing availability of the food they depend on to feed to their young.
- We could lose species that currently live in our most mountainous and northerly habitats. For example, the Scottish crossbill, the UK’s only endemic species of bird, faces the risk of extinction.
- Ground nesting birds will have their nests washed away by increased flooding.
- Saltwater inundation from tidal surges will damage fragile freshwater habits, killing fish and affecting the birds that depend on them.
Click on the links below to read real-life accounts from around the UK on how wildlife has already been affected by climate change.
