A SPECIES of moorland bird commonly seen in the Lake District may be going hungry as spring arrives earlier each year.

Scientists from the RSPB and Newcastle and Manchester Universities have found that the golden plover is breeding significantly earlier than it did 20 years ago.

Their paper, published in the Oecologia journal, warns that if climate change predictions prove accurate, golden plovers will be nesting three weeks earlier by 2100.

Researchers have studied 25 years' worth of data, finding the first plover chicks now hatch on average nine days earlier than in the mid-1980s because of recent warmer springs.

The bird, which is similar in size to a pigeon, stands out because it has a gold and brown back and black and white face. The golden plover breeds in short vegetation on upland heaths and peat bogs and adults also travel each day to feed on nearby pastures.

The bird is typically found on the moors and peat bogs of the Lake District but is also a common sight in the Pennines, Peak District and Scottish Highlands.

Experts believe that the change has been prompted by warmer springs but the golden plover's main food, daddy long legs or craneflies have failed to adapt at the same rate leaving the plover's future under threat.

While craneflies will adapt to some extent too, they are unlikely to be present in sufficient numbers to sustain the earliest golden plover Other upland species such as the greenshank and red grouse could also be affected in the same way.

Report author and RSPB research biologist Dr James Pearce-Higgins said: "The earliest hatching plover chicks, which normally have the best chance of survival, could in future struggle to find food, reducing their overall breeding success and threatening the population size.

"The golden plover has been protected by EU law since 1979, because of the important populations in the UK. Any escalation of climate change will put in peril not just the plover but other moorland and peat land species as well."

Upland and moorland birds are thought to be especially susceptible to climate change because they inhabit cooler, higher areas. Temperature rise forces them higher but in the UK there is only so far north that they can go.

Dr Pearce-Higgins said that urgent action was needed to minimise climate change and its effects on the bird populations.

"These upland habitats and the bird populations they support are therefore of international conservation importance. Action to limit climate change is vital to reduce its destructive impact and ensure these birds' survival."

l The goldeen plover pictured here is in its summer breeding plumage.