How the weather affected Britain's wildlife in 2008

National Trust audit reflects the month-by-month effect of bad weather on UK plants and animals


The first butterflies - red admirals - are spotted.

Snowdrops and crocuses emerge earlier than normal.


A sunny February means white-tailed bumblebees fly most days.


A bit of good news. The large tortoiseshell butterfly, thought to have been extinct in the UK, is bred successfully on National Trust land in south Devon.


Frost and snow hit bees hard.

The first chough eggs are laid in south Wales, a week later than usual.



Many nests fail, including those of great and blue tits (pictured right), due to the lack of insects and foul weather.


Cliff nesting birds breed late and rear few young.

A poor summer for insects such as butterflies, moths, hoverflies, ladybirds and dragonflies.


A good season for the purple emperor butterfly - at least until it is hit by a vicious gale in early July.

Puffin numbers on the Farne Islands down by 35% in five years.


Few wasps around as the poor weather hinders nest building.


Crickets and grasshoppers scarcely sing all month. Bats' staple food, insects, are seriously affected by the heavy rain.


A "remarkable and perhaps unprecedented" scarcity of the cranefly, which usually abounds at the level of a pest. This year all but absent.


Snow settles in London. A cold and wet month, after another poor summer, seals the fate of our bees.

A fantastic season for fungi. Twenty-six species of waxcap, including the very rare olive earthtongue, found at Tyntesfield in Somerset.


A surprising number of flowers, such as vibernum and aubretia, bloom in gardens. Roses flower, confused by the cold summer and warm autumn.

An otter makes the three-mile swim to the Farne Islands in the north sea for the first time on record despite the storms and gales.


Radio-tracking of lesser horseshoe bats did not take place in north Wales due to many of bats being underweight as a result of low insect numbers.