Puffins hit in seabird ‘wreck’

DID three months of fierce winter storms affect our wildlife? Millions of trees were felled and swathes of farmland inundated.

Badger sets were swamped and urban rats drowned in flash floods. Although birds, squirrels and pine martens saw their habitats altered, there is no real evidence they suffered.

‘It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good’; foxes, grey (hooded) crows and magpies scavenged in the mayhem. With the countryside transformed into a giant wetland, ducks and swans never had it so good. For them, it was ‘back to the good old days’ before humans tamed the rivers and drained the marshes.