Climate change poses the single greatest long-term threat to birds and other wildlife. Our changing climate means that many habitats become less suitable homes for our plants and wildlife. As part of The Climate Coalition, we are highlighting the changes we have already noticed on our reserves and the ways in which we are working to combat them.
We all need to take a stand for nature and #ShowtheLove!
One of the core parts of our work on the Solent RSPB reserves is the effort to ensure a viable healthy future for the regions breeding little tern population (as well as their close kin: sandwich terns and common terns). They arrive here each spring from their western African wintering grounds, driven by the instinct to raise a new generation, incubating eggs on the fine coastal shingle and feeding the hatched chicks on small fish in the surrounding cooler, rich waters.
On our RSPB nature reserves, we’re able to safeguard them from many of the threats of the modern world, allowing them to carry on with their lives mostly unaffected. Sadly, the predicted results of climate change threaten to impact our shore nesting seabirds throughout their lifecycle in ways that will be very difficult or potentially impossible for us to protect them from.
Due to the scale of the changes currently occurring in our atmosphere and oceans, the new or increased issues predicted are varied. Perhaps the most obvious impact is sea level rise which threatens to literally inundate the key remaining nesting areas. Likewise, depending on location, changes in weather patterns threaten to increase the frequency and power of nest destroying storm surges and torrential rainstorms which soak chicks too young to survive the experience.
It's not just direct impacts that threaten these enigmatic birds, climate change is likely to affect our entire ecosystem; many of the small fish which are needed to feed the rapidly growing chicks are expected to move north, following their own food sources as they retreat towards cooler waters. Changes to food chains will impact not only on our terns, but all the other species relying on these small fish for food.
Although we’ll do everything we can to mitigate the impacts ahead wherever possible, by far the best thing we can all do for our coastal wildlife, ourselves and future generations of both is to limit the amount of temperature increase that takes place whilst it’s still within our power to do so.