The British spring is a fickle season. We can experience floods and droughts, snow and rain, heatwaves and cold snaps. So, imagine how the range of different weather patterns in spring can affect migrant birds, many of which have made the epic journey from sub-Saharan Africa to be here.
Some years are worse than others. The spring of 1991 was one of the coldest on record, with a damp westerly or cold northerly airflows across the UK for almost all of April and much of May, and a cold, wet and dull June.
