Great tits cope well with warming
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| A pair of Great Tits |
The BBC is reporting some good news on the climate for a change in a story Great tits cope well with warming.
Researchers found that great tits are laying eggs earlier in the spring than they used to, keeping step with the earlier emergence of caterpillars.
Writing in the journal Science, they point out that the same birds in the Netherlands have not managed to adjust. Understanding why some species in some places are affected more than others by climatic shifts is vital, they say.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) commented that other species are likely to fare much worse than great tits as temperatures rise.
While this may be good news for the Tits, it’s about the only bird in the UK that seems to be adapting to the changed seasons. The changing climate spells a disaster for many species with predictions of up to 50% of species we know and love today being extinct within 40 years. Action today is critical. Economists are quick to point out that the costs of acting today are a fraction of the costs of inaction, or delayed action. But for many species of animals and plants the costs of inaction or delay are permanent, irreversible annihilation. No amount of money can bring whole species back from the dead. — DS
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