IS LOCKDOWN GOOD FOR NATURE?
The general assumption last year was that the absence of people in the landscape was beneficial for nature. Aside from the wild Llandudno goats that descended from a nearby hillside to populate the Welsh seaside town, there were sightings of deer grazing the lawns of a housing estate in Romford, Essex, and even munching the verges along the deserted A1 motorway.
But in truth, explains Prof Juliet Vickery, chief executive of the British Trust for Ornithology, last year’s lockdown spring was a rather more mixed affair for wildlife.
The warm weather resulted in an abundance of small invertebrates that benefited summer migrant species such as the swift and swallow more accustomed to hotter climes.
But some of our native species struggled. Many caterpillars hatched prematurely and great tits and blue tits struggled for food, meaning they did not have a good breeding season nationwide. Blackbirds and song thrushes also suffered as they were unable to locate their main food source, earthworms, in the parched soil.
However one unarguable benefit of the lockdown spring was the interest people developed in the wildlife on their own doorstep. The BTO Garden BirdWatch Survey membership doubled during this period from 10,000 to 20,000 people. Meanwhile, according to a recent YouGov poll commissioned by the RSPB, 63 per cent of more than 2,000 people surveyed said watching the birds and hearing birdsong added to their enjoyment of life since the pandemic. More than half believed the lockdowns had made them more aware of nature around them.
Prof Vickery believes that the pandemic might have permanently altered how we regard the seasons and in particular the passage of spring. “There is always a fear that once we get caught up in life again these things will go, but my real hope is people will have noticed those things about nature right on their doorstep and appreciate how it is changing through the seasons beyond lockdown,” she says.
This year as we begin to emerge from what the Prime Minister has previously termed our “national hibernation” she hopes the arrival of spring might also provide the first sign of our own society coming back to life.
“When we hear spring again this is nature restarting after winter and maybe we can share a bit of hope that we will also start getting going again over summer as well,” she says.