Effect of the Severe Winter of 1946–47 on Bird Life

Abstract

N. F. TICEHURST and P. H. T. Hartley (British Birds, 41, No. 11 November 1948) have examined 121 reports on the effects of the hard weather of early 1947 on bird life. February 1947 was the coldest month in Britain since 1895, and, in some parts of the country, temperatures were lower than any noted since records were begun in 1815. Many species of birds were greatly reduced in numbers ; but one of the striking features of the collated reports is the lack of any consistency in the proportionate reduction of numbers of groups of allied or ecologically similar species. For example, in the Wirral peninsula tree-creepers were scarcely affected, though nuthatches were much reduced ; but on the Surrey-Sussex border tree-creepers suffered heavily and nuthatches not at all. In south-west Devon and in Cardigan, blackbirds suffered heavier reduction than song-thrushes ; in the rest of the country blackbirds fared much better than song-thrushes. The diminutions of the stocks of the various species over the country as a whole shows few consistent trends, and probably the only general statements which can ba made are that some specimens of most of the winter residents of Britain were found dead, there were relatively few reports of icing of plumage or feet-a cause of mortality frequently recorded in 1939-40-and that there were many reports of unusual shifts of birds in search of food.