December In England - Bees Swarm, Tadpoles Spawn, Trees & Flowers Bloom

[hatrack]

You can tell it's December. The bumblebees are dancing on the flowers, the frog spawn is filling the ponds, and the cherry blossom hangs heavy on the branch. This, so far, is the winter that never was.

All around Britain, another season of extraordinary mildness is producing phenomena that seem positively unnatural. On a roundabout in Oxfordshire blooms a carpet of daisies, from the Home Counties come reports of bumblebees raising a new generation, from a Kent churchyard there is news of lesser celandine in flower, normally a February bloom, and, in the East Midlands, newts have been seen returning to ponds.

These reports are from the UK Phenology Network, whose 12,000 recorders monitor such "events". As long as two weeks ago, the network's volunteers were reporting the first primrose of "spring", in Crawley, West Sussex; rooks nesting; snowdrops blooming in Hampshire before November was out; and frog spawn in Pembrokeshire, Britain's earliest ever sighting. Global warming means our flora and fauna are defying the calendar as never before.

The far-from-bleak season is evident in gardens, too. Daffodils are flowering in Cumbria; rose bushes in Hampshire still have full blooms; summer bedding like fuschia and pelargoniums are still going; and in London, shrubs such as hebe remain in flower, perennials such as nepeta show full flower spikes, and January bloomers such as winter jasmine have been smothered in canary yellow for weeks. In Scotland, David Mitchell, curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, says: "I'm seeing trees that have only just dropped their leaves, I'm seeing shrubs coming into bud, and we haven't had a frost worth the name." Mr Mitchell attributes these strange signs to abnormally high soil temperatures, due to high atmospheric humidity and a lack of frost."

EDIT

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=592330

Has anyone alerted Michael Crichton & John Stossel? :puke:

[Karmadillo]

1. Spring and Autumn dancing hand in hand! Why fear this Eden?

I was picking ticks off the dog last week. I guess for Christmas instead of snow angels, we'll be making sand devils.

[Dogmudgeon]

2. Fear the North Atlantic Thermohaline circulation!

Warm winters will dilute the oceanic currents which have caused this abnormal mildness, bringing the warmth to an end -- for at least a thousand years.

It will turn Scotland into one enormous skating rink.

--p!

[Oggy]

3. Our Damson Tree

Only just dropped it's leaves this week ( I'm in Southern England ).