Climate change - what does it mean for birds?

By Matt Williams and Melanie Coath

Climate change can pose real challenges to wildlife. Here we explore a bit about how birds are affected, what the RSPB is doing, and one simple thing you can do to help.

Seeing an osprey fly south over my garden a few days ago, I realised that autumn migration is well underway for many of our birds. I can’t help but wonder what difficulties that osprey and other birds will encounter on their travels in the next few weeks. For some of them, a changing climate poses risks that their avian ancestors may not have faced. Desertification may make tough stretches of the journey much longer, or their timing for finding food en route or at their destination may be out of sync.

Osprey, Matt Adam Williams (mattadamwilliams.co.uk)

Species don’t just face these threats on their travels but also at home in the UK too. The loss of suitable habitat, extreme weather events and predators and prey appearing at different times are all examples of these impacts. This is why climate change is the greatest long-term threat to wildlife.

Recent RSPB research shows that in the UK and Europe wildlife is already being negatively impacted. By the end of the century one in six species worldwide could go extinct due to climate change.

Kittiwakes leave our shores in the winter, and some individuals travel as far as Greenland or northern Africa. This species illustrates the problems climate change causes for our birds. Research shows that as warming seas cause plankton to move, sand-eels follow it. These sand-eels are fish that kittiwakes rely on to feed their chicks in the breeding season. As the sand-eels shift northwards, they move away from the cliffs where the kittiwakes make their homes: they have to forage much further out to sea to find food, can struggle to find enough and this is linked to lower chick survival. Their UK population has fallen by 70% since 1986.

Kittiwake, Ed Marshall (rspb-images.com)

Kittiwakes also feel the effects of climate change from another angle. Wildlife can be put at (unnecessary) risk from renewable energy developments if they’re not sited carefully. We urgently need renewable energy to help us cut greenhouse gas emissions and tackle climate change. However energy developments need to be located in places where they will not pose significant harm to wildlife. Poorly sited offshore wind farms can harm kittiwakes and other marine wildlife. Therefore, wherever possible we work to foster good relationships with energy developers to foresee and avoid problems before development starts. An excellent example of this was achieved last month off the coast of East Anglia where we worked with the developer to alter the number of wind turbines and height of the blades to reduce likely harm to kittiwakes, gannets and lesser black-backed gulls.

While the need to deploy renewable energy is pressing, we will object to developments that we know could put wildlife at unacceptable risk. We do this because we also know that, done well, more than enough renewable energy to meet the UK’s needs can be delivered in harmony with nature.

You too can play a role in the move to renewable energy. A key partner we work with positively is Ecotricity and by switching your energy supply not only will you be reducing your carbon footprint and supporting the roll-out of renewable energy but for every switch for gas and electricity supply Ecotricity will provide up to a £50 annual donation to the work of the RSPB.

You can join Ecotricity online via www.ecotricity.co.uk/rspb or by calling on 0808 123 0 123 quoting RSPB1.