WILDLIFE REVIEW OF THE YEAR
Wildlife & conservation review of 2003
CHRIS GIBSON
1 Dove House Cottage, Oakley Road, Dovercourt, Essex CO12 5DR
gibson@dovehc.freeserve.co.uk
Introduction
Heat, cold, drought and flood in rapidly changing combinations: the vagaries of our glorious weather
provided an ever-prcscnt theme for 2003 - it seemed never to be ' normal'. Extreme weather events
affected us all: from heavy snow in January to the serious floods at both ends of the year, separated
by the record-breaking heat and drought of mid-summer, we experienced everything. Taken as a
whole, 2003 was globally the third warmest on record - each of the ten warmest has been since
1990. including every year since 1997. This year fulfilled all the key predictions associated with
climate change: warmer average temperatures, and increasingly unpredictable and extreme
events.
And of course our wildlife was affected by this. Take the breeding birds. They got off to a good
start during a dry and sunny February, only to be set back by hard, late frosts in April and May. The
early summer warmth provided some respite, only for the mid-summer drought to set them back
again, resulting in an overall very poor breeding season. We, as naturalists, are in a prime position
to detect changes in our flora and fauna which may be attributable to climate change. After all,
recording species movements and changes in the timing of natural events is what we do. I am keen
to capture any information, however anecdotal, about changes to the wildlife of Essex in which
climate change could be playing a part. If anyone has any thoughts on the subject and examples
they would like to put forward, please contact me, and I will include them in a paper I am preparing
for a future Essex Naturalist,
As always, I am indebted to the many observers whose records form the bulk of this report, and to
the regular publications from which items have been taken. I would like to stress again that any bird
records given here are not definitive: for 'the word' on birds, see the excellent Essex Bird Report
published annually by the Essex Birdwatching Society.
Winter
Early January soon set the weather scene: a couple of days of grey, damp misery gave way to cold
-many of us received a substantial covering of snow on the 7th. But a week later we were basking
in glorious sunshine and 17°C (and night-time minima as high as 11°C), before returning to winter
on the 30th, when disrupting blizzards swept across the region, bringing East Anglia to a standstill.
Underpinning all of this was water, filling and spill ing from every river and stream; the Environment
Agency issued more than 140 flood warnings, especially in south and south-eastern England.
Once again, nature demonstrated the folly of our development of floodplains. Surely now the time
has come, not only to stop new development in flood-risk areas, but also to start de-developing
those which have been developed without a thought to the implications for our management of
Essex Naturalist (New Series) 21 (2004)
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