When we think of spring migrant birds, it is easy to focus on songbirds such as warblers, flycatchers and swallows. Yet during late spring, many are waders – passing through Britain on their way north to breed in the high Arctic from their winter quarters in sub-Saharan Africa.

According to the British Trust for Ornithology’s regular migration blog, it has been a good year for waders: including more common species such as ringed and grey plovers, bar-tailed godwit, sanderling and knot.

Scarcer species are also turning up: elegant wood sandpipers and tiny Temminck’s stints, which breed on the boggy wetlands of Scandinavia and Siberia, with a few pairs occasionally stopping off to nest in the Scottish Highlands.

But like all birds that breed in the Arctic and subarctic, they are being affected by the climate crisis, whose effects are more extreme the further north you go. The taiga forests and tundra to the north are experiencing much higher temperatures than normal, which leads to wetland habitats such as bogs drying out, and an increase in forest cover due to the longer growing season.

Timing is also an issue. These migrant waders have evolved to reach their breeding grounds at the height of the northern summer in late May or June, when long hours of daylight and abundant insect food provide ideal conditions to raise their young. But with winters and springs being far warmer than in the past, the peak of the insects may already be over when the birds arrive.