The Guardian‘s Environment section covers the odd spring weather’s effect on one of the rich varied beauties of the animal kingdom (click the image to the left to go to the story).  Whether this is just an oddball season or another sampling of climate change impacts, it is disheartening to think of the depletion of color that might result:

Richard Fox, Butterfly Conservation surveys manager, said: “Overall, butterflies have experienced an unusual spring so far – the mild winter and very warm March led to some extremely early emergences, but the cold, wet April delayed the emergence of other species.

“The worry about this April is that the butterflies that did emerge will have poor breeding success due to the bad weather.

“Unless conditions improve in the next few weeks their opportunities to breed will be very limited and, therefore, we may see population crashes later in the year or next spring.”

He added: “Last year we had a hot spring and a poor summer. This year we’re having a poor spring, so let’s hope the summer is better.”