The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
Squawks in my yard bring climate realities home
A PARROT has settled in my garden. This may not be of much news to those you down south who are regularly accosted by the squawks of ringnecked parakeets, but up here on my street in Sheffield, it is causing a stir.
Curtains (mainly mine) twitch as it bolts between a crabapple tree which has become its favourite perch and the bird feeder. The local wood pigeons are not happy, puffing out their chests self-importantly and strutting around to display their displeasure.
Our resident grey squirrel is even more furious and there have been some amusing tussles as they compete to gobble up sunflower seeds.
Like the grey squirrel (introduced in 19th century Britain as a curiosity by a US banker) my parrot is an invasive species. Ring-necked parakeets have colonised Britain since the second half of the 20th century encouraged by a more temperate climate.
Their range has now extended well beyond Yorkshire. A flock in Glasgow has the distinction of the northernmost colony of parrots in the world.
Such is the pace of climate change that we can expect ever more exotic species to call Britain home. Beeeaters, marvellous paradisiacal birds with shimmering turquoise wings, now breed in Norfolk. Look out any window during a train journey and you will see little egrets (which first started breeding here in 1996 after arriving from France) stalking the waterways.
I mention all this because the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service found February was the warmest on record. The global temperature for the past year has also been the highest on record – at 1.56C above pre-industrial levels. Overall, Europe has witnessed its second warmest winter.
As well as extreme weather we can expect a mass migration of species northwards. There will be winners and losers in this age of extremes.*