Cold weather leaves UK wildlife in chaos

After a long winter, the UK experienced its coldest spring in more than 50 years, with heavy snowfalls more akin to the harshest of winters, leaving farmers to dig out thousands of livestock from deep drifts of snow.

Experts have said that the long winter followed by such a cold spring has put summer growth three weeks behind normal.

This has caused winged insects to struggle, with a knock-on effect on plant pollination and a lack of food for birds.

Matthew Oates, a naturalist at the National Trust, said: “This year winter was loath to let go. All of this has meant that spring got seriously behind and was the latest since 1996; with bluebells still in bloom in early June and many butterflies were very late to emerge.”

He added: “Some aspects of spring failed altogether – with frogs and toads struggling to breed in ponds which remained frozen.”

Last year was the worst ever for butterflies numbers, which have not yet recovered, although they may be emerging late due to the delay in summer growth.

This year, martins, swallows and swifts have struggled to find airborne insect food, which disappears when the weather’s particularly cold.

The persistent bitter easterly wind in March led to the death of many seabirds along the east coast of Scotland and northern England. Around 3,500 puffins died, seemingly of starvation, along with guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes and shags.

With last year’s wet summer, slugs thrived, but this year, the late-spring frosts have hit them hard, with a large reduction in numbers.

Some species have thrived this year. The National Trust said that this year has been great for rookeries. There were record number of sandwich terns nesting at Blakeney on the north Norfolk coast and craneflies, or daddy-long-legs, have been unusually numerous.

The weather has been somewhat better through June, with some warmth and sunshine, which is expected to lead to plenty of holly berries at Christmas as they were pollinated in good weather.

Late flowering apple varieties could prosper and large numbers of cabbage whites are expected too.

Whilst the weather into next week looks changeable, there are hints that high pressure may build more strongly towards mid-month, bringing a longer spell of fine and warm weather for many places.