Odd Summer Weather

By Dr Stephen Moss, Global Consultant, NETVUE Birdfy

In recent summers, we in Britain – and my friends in the USA and Canada – have experienced very unseasonable weather, as a result of the climate crisis, which is disrupting weather patterns around the globe. For me in Somerset, this summer has been no exception. But what effect does this unpredictability have on our garden and backyard birds?

Where has the summer gone? That’s the question I’m being asked by my family and friends, and on my social media account. Because I’m known as a nature expert, and also write a monthly column about the weather for the Guardian newspaper, people expect me to know all the answers. But to be honest, I’m just as puzzled as everyone else!

Summers in Britain tend to fall into two rough patterns: either we get a long period of high pressure, which means the weather is fine, sunny and warm, with little or no change until the high pressure system moves on – days, weeks or even months later.  Or low pressure dominates, with a constant arrival of weather systems from the west, bringing rain and wind from the Atlantic Ocean.

Sometimes we get both: the United Kingdom is very long from north to south, so it can be cold and wet in the far north and warm and dry in the south – or vice versa. And of course this can change from week to week, or month to month, throughout the summer. This year has certainly seen that happen, with day maximum temperatures in my garden as low as the low 60s Fahrenheit (around 15 degrees Celsius) or as high as the low 80s Fahrenheit (around 25 to 28 degrees Celsius).

Today, as I write this in my garden office, looking out onto my Birdfy bamboo feeder camera, it is chilly, windy and damp – and the birds are feeding avidly to build up much-needed energy. Maybe with this unusually poor weather they are getting ready – a month or two earlier than usual – for the autumn and winter to come.

The trouble with these growing extremes of weather is that birds prefer stability. Ideally, they’d like a warm summer, with regular falls of rain, which help fruits and berries ripen, and insects thrive. Instead they are experiencing summers where it hardly rains, the earth hardens and they struggle to find food; or very wet and quite cool summers, which can cause newly fledged birds to struggle.

We can only hope that with the right ways of mitigating the effects of the climate crisis, and reducing the rapid warming of the world, our weather patterns begin to settle down. In the meantime, please keep putting out food in your Birdfy feeders, and enjoy watching the birds that visit your home!