How does wildlife adjust to winter in Britain? Over millions of years, every living being on Earth has evolved and adapted to its unique environment. This adaptation includes their ability to adjust to their habitat’s air, water, soil, light, and temperature. We humans have even adapted to our modern habitat. However, recent climate changes are emerging faster than any species on Earth, including humans, can evolve to survive.
The days become shorter in autumn, and deciduous trees lose their leaves. Spiders move indoors, and insects seem to disappear. Most people notice the shorter days, longer nights, and the drop in temperature. Overnight frosts and snowfall will soon be with us once again.
At this time, humans often go outdoors less, preferring to stay indoors and turn the heating on instead. I will always advocate popping on an extra layer or two, grabbing your hat, scarf, and coat, pulling on your boots and getting outside as often as possible.
Our wildlife has also adapted to survive the winter months.
So join me as we explore some of the ways wildlife adapts to survive through the British winter.
Cold Blooded Vertebrates and Invertebrates
Cold-blooded animals have developed some unique ways of surviving during winter.
Vertebrates like fish, amphibians, reptiles, and invertebrates that lack backbones, adapt to changes in their habitat by slowing down their body processes, which is known as diapause.
This helps them conserve energy and survive for several weeks in seclusion. They hide under stones, logs, ponds, pools or compost heaps to protect themselves from predators and the cold weather.
Invertebrates like mini beasts hide their eggs, larvae, or pupae during winter, ready to continue their species’ life cycle in spring. Female spiders will often die after laying eggs in the autumn.
Their offspring remain in white silk cocoons, usually tucked away under logs, barns, garden sheds, and sometimes even in houses. In spring, baby spiders emerge from the cocoon, continuing the survival of their species.
Mammals in Winter
Mammals, including humans, prepare for winter by consuming as much food as possible. They fatten themselves up to maintain a constant body temperature during cold weather.
Wild mammals like foxes, badgers, and squirrels grow thicker coats to keep the air warmed by their body heat closer to their skin.
Smaller mammals like mice and voles create cosy underground nests to sleep in during colder days, conserving energy by being inactive.
Badgers do not hibernate but save energy by sleeping through spells of bad weather in underground setts lined with bracken and other plant material.
Foxes and deer remain active throughout winter, surviving on a wide range of food types, including carrion and human scraps, whilst Deer will browse the leaves of evergreen plants.
Insectivorous mammals slow their body processes in a process called hibernation to survive through winter. Only three British wild species hibernate.
Bats, which rely mainly on invertebrates for food, hibernate through winter, wrapped in their wings, in caves, trees or attics. Bats rely entirely on insects and will wake up on warmer days to look for food and water
Despite the common belief, Hedgehogs do not hibernate all winter. They do drop body temperature and lower their heartbeat to just a few beats per minute, conserving energy.
Longer colder winters suit these mammals better as they will remain in hibernation for longer periods. The current pattern in Britain of warmer, wet winters means that some hedgehogs will not hibernate at all, whilst others will be awake on the warmer days.
This causes major problems for the individual hogs who have used huge amounts of their stored energy to wake up from torpor and need to find food to restore their energy levels the main food sources such as beetles and worms are not present and many will become sick and possibly die.
The dormouse is the only true hibernator in Britain.
Both the now, not so common and edible dormouse sleep from October to April without waking up. They spend the autumn months fattening themselves up in autumn, eating pollen, flowers, insects, and fruits, often doubling their weight whilst building a warm nest, often in a hazel hedgerow, in the centre for the common Dormouse and near the ground for the Edible Dormouse.
How do birds adapt to winter?
Birds have the advantage of flight, so some species will fly to warmer climates when the days are getting shorter and food is more scarce. This is a survival strategy called migration.
The swallow is perhaps the best-known migrant bird species. Flocks of swallows arrive in Britain in late spring, having flown from southern Africa.
They will then spend the summer in Britain, raising two or three broods, before they flock together for the return journey. Just like its close relative, the house martin, the swallow is well-adapted for long-distance flight, having a streamlined body and narrow, curved wings.
Many bird species will stay in Britain during the winter, some of them having flown in from their northern breeding grounds such as Russia, Greenland, Scandinavia or even the Arctic. They do this to avoid the extremely cold conditions of those places.
While some blackbirds, song thrushes, and starlings are resident species in Britain, others flock into the country from northern climes to enjoy our comparatively mild winter.
Other winter migrants include redwings, bramblings, and fieldfares, which are cousins of the thrush, finch, and blackbird. Wild fruits and seeds are an important food source for all these birds.
On colder nights, you will see them roosting with their feathers ‘fluffed out’ to help keep themselves warm.
Many waterfowl and waders flock to our shores to find ice-free water and mud flats.
And what about the plants?
Plants lose water through their leaves via a process known as transpiration. Apart from the problem of frozen earth and water during the winter, photosynthesis in the leaves would also be poor because there are only a few hours of very weak sunlight. Many plants, therefore, overcome these problems by ‘shutting down’ almost completely.
Perennial plants, such as the Red Campion Silene Dioica or the Oxeye Daisy Leucanthemum Vulgare that continue to grow for several years, often lose their leaves and stems may die back during winter and rely on the stored food in their root system to survive.
Annual plants, such as the Common Poppy Papaver Rhoeas or the Corn Cockle Agrostemma Githago, will flower in the summer and then die off completely, leaving only their seeds to survive the winter and germinate the following spring.
Some seeds of plants need to be frozen by the winter frosts before they will germinate. This is so that they do not germinate early during a spell of warm autumn weather.
Evergreen trees, such as the Holly Ilex or Scots Pine Pinus Sylvestris, often have leaves with a thick waxy coating or thin, needle-like leaves. These adaptations help them to conserve water during winter.
Deciduous trees, such as Oak Quercus Robur, Ash Fraxinus Excelsior, and Beech, Fagus Sylvatica, shed their leaves in the autumn.
On frosty winter days, when the water in the soil is frozen, it cannot be taken up by the roots, even if the air temperature is above freezing and the winter sun is shining. If these British native trees had leaves throughout winter, they would lose a lot of water and wilt, which could result in the death of the tree.
So dropping their leaves before winter sets in is a great thing for native deciduous trees to do. The fallen leaves mulch and feed the soil and help protect the tree from the severe winds and winter storms. Oak, Beech, and other native deciduous trees can ‘tick over’ during winter using stored energy in their roots.
In the autumn, as the tree becomes dormant, a compound called abscisic acid triggers in the base of the leaves. This reduces the water from the tree reaching the leaf. As they gradually break down, the red and purple anthocyanin which help to protect the young leaf and the chlorophyll, that produces the green colour begin to fade, and the leaf will break down.
All leaves on the tree are individual and will, therefore, break in the various stages at differing times before falling from the tree, and it is this process that brings us the magical hues and colours of autumn.
Nature is amazing, as these varied techniques and adaptations to the short winter days and cold, long winter nights clearly show us.
Further information Cold-blooded Vertebrates and Invertebrates
Further information Mammals in winter
Further information Birds in British winter
Further information How wildflowers survive winter
Further information Deciduous Trees in Winter
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