Nature's Best

Wildlife worries over lack of rain

-By Mark Kinver
BBC News science and nature reporter

The RSPB says 2006 is one the worst breeding seasons on record for wetland birds.

Rainfall in England and Wales over the past 18 months has been the second lowest since 1976, but water levels in parts of central and southern England are at their lowest level since the 1930s.

"If you have a dry winter like the one we have had then you are not able to make the wetlands suitable for the birds you are trying to attract," says Phil Burston, the RSPB's senior water policy officer.

He said fewer birds such as lapwings, redshanks and snipes have arrived at the charity's wetlands reserves.

"Our reserve at Elmley Marshes in Kent would, in a normal year, have about 200 pairs of lapwings.

"Last year it had 80 pairs, and this year it looks as if we have just 60 pairs. So the trend is downwards."

Mr Burston says that a number of birds that did arrive have made no attempt to nest because conditions are too dry.

He says although the breeding season closes towards the end of June, a dry summer will make matters worse.

"The adults and the young have to find food, such as invertebrates in moist soils. So if these wetlands dry up then the waders will not be able to get access to their food. If that continues, they will eventually die."

To help alleviate the problem, the RSPB has been granted a 28-day licence by the Environment Agency to pump water from a nearby creek on to the marsh.

Fears for fish Elsewhere, the Environment Agency says it is already seeing the consequences
of the prolonged dry period. These include an algal bloom in a lake in Hampshire, and the deaths of
hundreds of fish that became trapped in a shallow stream in Berkshire.

"Because it has been relatively wet during April and May, the impacts have been isolated," says Environment Agency water resources manager Glenn Watts.

A long, hot summer will hit aquatic wildlife, experts say

"However, as we head into the summer they will become more obvious. River levels will drop quite quickly this year unless there is relatively high rainfall."

Mr Watts warns that fish populations will be one of the main casualties of a hot summer: "We would see much lower river flows, oxygen levels dropping,
resulting in more fish being stressed, if not more deaths."

He says that low water levels would also mean that many species would not be able to reach their spawning grounds, remaining in the main rivers, leaving them within the easy reach of predators.

"We will also see more algal blooms, more weed growth, resulting in the
rivers looking quite different," Mr Watts adds.

'Ecological crisis'

This month has seen an increase in evaporation rates and soil losing its moisture, which the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) believes marks the end of the "recharge season" for this year.

In its latest hydrological summary, the centre says groundwater levels and river flows are set to decline through the summer, with the prospect of exceptionally low flows by the autumn.

"Winter rainfall does control how much water is available in soils to tide plants over dry periods in the summer," says CEH spokesman Barnaby Smith. However, he says it is too early to be talking in terms of an "ecological crisis".

"If we have a wet summer we will probably not see too many adverse effects, but we will not need a particularly long dry period before some plants start to suffer," Dr Smith adds.

Among the most vulnerable species of trees are birch and beech. The trees' shallow roots mean they are dependent on being able to access water near the surface.

One visible sign that trees were suffering from a lack of water would be the shedding of leaves much earlier than the autumnal norm.

In 1976, millions of trees were reported to have been killed by that year's prolonged summer drought.

"This is the sort of thing that we could see again happening this year, but it would depend upon a very long, hot, dry summer," says Glenn Watts.

Balancing act

Agriculture is one area that straddles both the demand for water abstraction and the environmental impact of water shortages. "It is too early to tell if the drought this year is going to be a problem for farmers because we have not got to the stage yet where crops are under stress," says National Farmers' Union (NFU) head of policy services, Andrew Clark.

"The concern for farmers comes in July or August when they want to know whether they will be able to use spray irrigation." Any water restrictions will particularly affect vegetable crops, such as potatoes and onions, which farmers need to continue watering over the summer months. "This is to make sure that we get the right size of potatoes, onions, parsnips, carrots etc that the retail market wants us to provide," Mr Clark
says.

He says farmers are offered guidance on irrigation. The NFU, Environment Agency, and the UK Irrigation Association have all issued advice on the wise use of water. "To be honest," says Mr Clark, "water is such a scarce resource that even in a relatively damp period all responsible irrigators would be looking at their
methods."

The Environment Agency's Glenn Watts says any savings that can be made now will prove invaluable if rainfall levels remain below average. "If we had average rainfall over the summer but another dry winter, similar to the previous two, then water companies will face similar difficulties to this year. "However, if we had a dry summer which was followed by a dry winter then we would face a very difficult situation."

Learning from the Trees

What's a Druid without trees? For that matter, what's a world without trees? Yet most of us take trees for granted. When I was teaching honors and Advanced Placement English to gifted high school students, I gave the same assignment at the beginning of each school year. Go out tonight, I would instruct them, and hug a tree; then write about your experience.

My students were, of course, incredulous. This woman is nuts. Hug a tree? What's that have to do with learning English? But being the obedient little honors students that they were, everyone always completed her assignment.

The next day each student would read his journal entries aloud. Some were incredibly funny (usually written by self-conscious, he-man, athletic types who reported having crept about in the wee hours of the morning so as not to actually be SEEN doing this dirty deed). But ALWAYS, without exception, the students were amazed at what they felt. While they were aware that trees are alive, their awareness rested at some abstract intellectual level. Once they touched the living thing in its essence, they understood the meaning of the word "alive" in all its nuances.

For most of us, awareness is a touch (or a hug, if you will) away. I know of no other interaction that so immediately and intensely renders us aware of the life around us. So go hug a tree and write about your experience. Once you have completed the exercise, repeat it with another kind of tree. Was there a difference? In Charleston, we have a thousand-year old live oak which natives call "Angel Oak." The breadth and sheer power of this tree (protected in a city park) is incomparable. Each time I have visited and sat at its base, my back against its broad trunk, my feet on the humped stool of an exposed root, I am given what I call my "affirmations" (little signs that reaffirm for me the magic of the universe and my part in it). Sometimes it comes in the form of a visiting hawk; sometimes a horde of butterflies; sometimes I find unique feathers at its base. It provides acorns, moss, and ferns for my spellwork and, of course, a deep sense of peace.

I always leave three shiny copper pennies in its hollows in return. The crepe myrtles that adorn the city streets, on the other hand, are quieter trees. They stand like shy and beautiful women as I stroke their smooth, shiny, twisted trunks. Willows are sad trees whose song is a wistful whish-h-h in the breeze. Birches emote a sense of freshness and possibility. The tree has long been symbolic of life, but I also like to draw the analogy of the tree to the human brain.

Everything in the universe exists in macrocosmic and microcosmic forms. The solar system is mirrored by the atom, a factory by a colony of ants. So, too, are the branching dendrites of our brains which spread from each neuron like the branches of a tree. Dendrites pass information quickly from one neuron to the next, processing at an amazing rate. The better care one takes of a tree, the more branches it produces. The more one uses her brain, the more dendrites are produced. The more dendrites one possesses, the better one's potential for intellectual accomplishment. When Albert Einstein died and left his brain to be analyzed, the only real difference between it and the brains of other humans was in the amazing amount of dendrites Einstein possessed. Science has told us what the trees have always known, that proper use strengthens and enhances.