Warm winter upsets nature

It might technically be mid-winter but the unseasonally warm temperatures are totally confusing nature, the Volkskrant reports today. The paper’s front page photograph shows a man mowing the lawn, which by rights should be stiff with frost.


‘The first chiffchaff has already been spotted’, the paper headlines its page three article, referring to the small brown bird that normally arrives in spring.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ forestry warden Sam Juffermans tells the paper. ‘The warm winter has forced both plants and animals into a completely different rhythm. For example, hedgehogs have not hibernated.’
Temperatures reached up to 15 degrees in some places on Tuesday and in the Amsterdamse Bos it was nine degrees warmer than normal, Juffermans said. ‘Many different sorts of plants are flowering,’ he said. Rhododendrons, cherry and flowering hazel are already in bloom.

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