ENVIRONMENT minister David Miliband saw at first hand this week how climate change is affecting the delicate balance of life in Oxfordshire's woodlands.

Mr Miliband braved the wind and rain for a walk in Wytham Woods where he was told the woodland had experienced yet another early breeding season.

During his visit, hosted by Oxford University and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, he toured a weather station and bird nesting boxes and met Dr Andy Gosler, who has carried out one of the longest running studies into the British bird population, at Wytham.

Dr Gosler said: "Because of climate change, the timing of breeding is now happening three weeks earlier than it was 25 years ago.

"Although this isn't a problem if the breeding season gets steadily earlier, it is a problem when the weather becomes variable, because this stops birds and animals making important predictions.

"The climate controls when oak buds burst, which in turn affects when the caterpillars appear that eat these buds.

"And birds like great tits, which rely on the caterpillars for food, produce their clutches of eggs around these caterpillars appearing it's all about timing."

Praising the research being carried out at the "precious resource" of Wytham, Mr Miliband, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "The reality of climate change is with us today.

"Here in Wytham Woods, we are already seeing changes in our long cherished biodiversity. We can only expect much bigger changes to come."

The minister also watched students from across the UK training at Wytham for an investigation of tree canopies in Borneo.

Declining an offer to scale a tree, Mr Miliband added: "It's tempting, but I'll leave it to the professionals."

Mr Miliband's visit coincided with him launching a new report, Climate Change and Biodiversity in Europe, which claims climate change poses an immediate challenge to the European Union target of halting biodiversity loss by 2010.

The new research, by Defra, lists many plant, insect and bird species as already at risk, including butterflies such as the holly blue and comma, migratory wader birds like the dunlin, sanderling and ringed plover, the cricket, common stork's bill, bearded tit and the celery-leaved buttercup. Copies of the report are available from the Defra website at www.defra.gov.uk Another recent visitor to Wytham was Sir David Attenborough, whose new programme Are We Changing Planet Earth? launched the BBC's Climate Chaos season, on Wednesday night.

Sir David was filmed in Wytham's bluebell wood, talking about the sun's energy.

Oxford University's Lower Carbon Futures Team Leader, Dr Brenda Boardman, has also been enlisted for the Climate Chaos season.

Appearing on The Money Programme, (BBC2, June 2, 7pm), she advises a family from Teesdale, an area of the UK with one of the highest carbon emissions per household, on how to reduce their carbon effect.