Sharon Boardman - Wildlife - 10, January (From Worcester News)

Sharon Boardman - Wildlife - 10, January

12:46pm Monday 12th January 2009 in

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WINTER can bring some of the most beautiful, natural scenes you will ever experience.

The whole place glistens around you, there is a deathly silence as the snow deadens the sound and the noise your footprints make through the icy sheet of cotton wool is surprisingly addictive.

But January is one of the harshest months for wildlife with natural food sources in our countryside and gardens in short supply.

Finding worms and other insects is a challenge for all garden birds as the weather turns colder and the ground becomes hard and impenetrable.

Unlike mammals, who can store fat for extreme conditions, birds have to eat enough every day to make it through a cold night.

With just eight hours to eat up to 40 per cent of their body weight and a push to feed constantly from sunrise to sunset, the short winter days can be fatal for the birds around us.

The food that we leave out in our gardens will substitute the natural food and could even be the difference between life and death.

But it’s not just garden birds that are suffering. On lakes, rivers and wetlands, particularly in inland areas, birds are struggling to survive after enduring seven consecutive days of freezing temperatures.

For the first time since 1997, the RSPB, the British Trust for Ornithology, the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and Natural England called earlier this week on birdwatchers, walkers, anglers and water sports enthusiasts across Britain to minimise disturbance to groups of ducks, geese and wading birds.

If the severe weather continues for 14 days in succession, the shooting of some species of duck, geese, and wading bird can be suspended for a fortnight to help the birds recover. The last time such a ban was imposed was in 1997.

The birds affected include ducks – including wigeon and pintail – and wading birds, such as godwits, dunlin and knot. These birds either nest in the Arctic, or further north or east in Europe.

During the winter, the birds visit the UK to escape harsher conditions further north.

When we have the kind of freezing conditions we are experiencing now, disturbance will force the birds to squander their precious energy resources by taking flight when what they need is to spend as much time as possible feeding.

If the freeze continues, we can expect the warmer estuaries on the west coast – such as the Severn – to be especially important as birds escape the weather.

The Severn is among our most important wildlife sites.