This year’s climate was good news for parts of the country’s environment, but for some wildlife the weather’s effect was negative, the National Trust has said.
We look at the winners and losers of the wet and mild weather seen over the past year.
Winners
Heather at Dunwich Heath in Suffolk, East Anglia, home to species including nightjar, woodlark and adders, had suffered a 60% loss due to extreme heat and drought conditions in 2022.
A drone survey in June revealed 11% of the damaged heathland heather had come back to life following spring rainfall.
There is a dense population of water voles – and a boost to kestrels and barn owls – in new wetlands at Holnicote’s river restoration project in Somerset.
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Grey seals established their first colony in Suffolk, at Orford Ness, in a sign of the species’ continued recovery, with the seals thought to have chosen to breed there due to the low risk of disturbance in the remote spot and as numbers spilled over from other colonies along the coastline.
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A cool damp autumn with no frosts helped grassland fungi in a number of places, the trust said.
Losers
The wet and cool spring hit insects, with butterfly numbers much lower than normal, and some previously recorded species not seen at all at some National Trust properties.
At Barrington Court in Somerset, butterflies were almost completely absent from the gardens until late August, numbers were half normal levels at the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland and their lowest in 15 years of recording during “peak” week at Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire.
Bees struggled in many places although there were positive sightings of the rare bilberry bumblebee in the Shropshire Hills, where conservation work has restored old hay meadows.
Bats in some roosts were down on last year, with some sites seeing significant drops due to the wet, cool weather reducing opportunities to feed and lower numbers of insects to feed on.
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It was a mixed picture for seabirds, with no signs of bird flu on the Farne Islands, off the Northumberland coast, and at Long Nanny, where Arctic tern numbers were lower than in 2023 due to the disease but were higher than expected.
Puffin numbers on the Farnes were declared stable but European shag numbers were significantly down – with rangers saying it was likely due to more extreme weather and frequent storms – while terns there recorded big losses.
