Birds ‘off the pace’ with warming

August 20, 2008

French birds are moving northwards in response to climate change, but not fast enough, scientists have found.

Their data came from a large survey in which volunteer ornithologists counted more than 105 species of bird.

In the Royal Society journal Proceedings B, researchers say that the birds are lagging some 182km behind the increases in temperature.

This lag may be of particular concern to rare birds or species that have very specific food requirements.

"The flora and fauna around us are shifting over time due to climate change," said Vincent Devictor, who led the research project from the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN) in Paris.

"The result is desynchronisation. If birds and the insects on which they depend do not react in the same way, we are headed for an upheaval in the interaction between species," he told the AFP news agency.

Chaffinches are among the birds found to be nesting earlier in the UK.

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