British birds face potential eco-disaster

Familiar British bird species will be driven hundreds of miles further north by the end of the century because of the “potentially disastrous” impact of global warming, according to a new book.

If man-made climate change persists at the present rate, eight species including the Scottish crossbill, the snow bunting, pintail and osprey may face total extinction in Britain by 2100 as rising temperatures reduce the areas they can live in, it is claimed.
Many more would have to move an average of more than 300 miles north, so red grouse and merlins would no longer be found on the moors of the south of England or lapwings on the arable fields of East Anglia.

The avocet, the emblem of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, would have to become the logo of RSPB Scotland.

However, there would also be new arrivals from the south such as the black kite, familiar from the slums of Cairo, as well as the night heron, hoopoe and black woodpecker, according to A Climatic Atlas of European Breeding Birds.

The atlas, compiled by experts from Durham University and the RSPB using the latest climate change predictions, shows that by 2100 three-quarters of all Europe’s present birds would suffer declines in range.

The average bird’s habitat would move northwards and overlap its current range by only 40 per cent.

Telegraph