Abstract
THE unusually mild weather over the greater part of the winter of 1948-49 in England and Wales has not only produced many remarkably interesting phenological observations, but also substantially the various theories and averages upon and professional meteorological observers forecast a probably severe winter for this period. Indeed, one London wild-life quarterly produced in the winter of 1948–49 a paragraph : "Nature-wise observers predict an unusually severe winter". Their reasons were : "(1) There has been an unusually heavy crop of wild berries. (2) Squirrels have been noticeably active in gathering and storing nuts. (3) Flocks of wild geese from Iceland and Russia have arrived earlier than usual. (4) Wild swans are arriving in considerable flocks. . . . (5) In the Highlands the deer have left their mountain fastnesses a month earlier. ..."In each case the oft-quoted forecast had been disproved even so recently as the mild winter of 1947–48, which followed an abundant berry crop—the result of a previously good growing season. Very large flocks of pintail and wigeon have been recorded on the Cheshire Dee despite the mild winter.
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Effects of the Mild Winter. Nature 163, 395 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/163395c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/163395c0