British wildlife adapts well to unusual weather

British wildlife has enjoyed a successful year, due to the mild spring and warm autumn in the UK. According to the experts at the National Trust, the abundant spring-like sunshine in autumn has managed to overcome and survive the very wet and cool summer.

This success has created many favourable breeding conditions for species within the National Trust, from grey seals and spring insects, to the increase in warmth loving insects such as our bumblebees and butterflies. This has also produced an abundance of berries and fruit from spring-flowering shrubs such as the hawthrorn, sloe, beech nuts and especially apple. This ensures our deer, grey squirrels and badgers have a plentiful food source for the up and coming winter months ahead, along with our winter birds. Matthew Oates, wildlife adviser at the National Trust, said: "The unusual weather this year has confused some of our native wildlife but many species have responded well."

This change in weather condition has also brought about sightings of rare birds, early appearances of vibrant spring flowers and most vegetation and blossom surfacing three to four weeks earlier than normal. Yet this change comes with caution as it didn’t mean good news for our frogs, toads and newts as their ponds dried up and water levels in England were at their lowest since 1976. Matthew Oates continued saying that, "It has certainly been an unpredictable year of weather and the extreme fluctuations throughout just a single year continue to provide challenges to our wildlife."