Weatherwatch: Constant rain is a pain for visiting birds

Will it ever stop raining? That’s the constant refrain from my Somerset neighbours – especially the local farmers – after flooding this winter to match the famous events of a decade ago. As in the rest of southern England, the first quarter of 2024 here has certainly been very wet.

How is the rain affecting resident and migrant birds? Birdsong has been as loud as ever in our garden, with blackbirds, song thrushes and the newly arrived chiffchaffs all contributing to the spring dawn chorus. Chiffchaffs don’t go anything like as far as other migrants, spending the winter in Spain and north Africa, or in recent decades staying out in the milder south and west of Britain, helped in the past few years by very mild winters.

For long-distance migrants such as the swallow, house martin and swift, it is a very different scenario. These feed on flying insects, so prolonged wet weather delays their arrival – they simply stay put on the other side of the Channel – and causes problems once they have reached our shores.

We know that climate change leads to more extremes in our weather. And indeed the past few springs and summers have veered between downpours and droughts, neither of which is good for these visiting birds, which above all else, like our farmers, need stability.