THE chances of the south having a white Christmas are increasing.

Forecasters are predicting a ten per cent chance of snow-covered streets during the festive period.

The news comes as research has revealed how warmer winters are enticing rare birds back to Hampshire.

The rise in temperature plus changing farming patterns in Europe may have been responsible for an increase of egrets in the south since 1989.

The birds, which have been rare in the UK for most of the 20th century, are returning to Hampshire from the Mediterranean and north Africa , according to studies by University of Southampton graduate Matt Topsfield.

There were nearly 1,000 of the birds in the UK during the summer - the majority of which remain here all year round.

Matt said: "Egrets have been picked up in the media as evidence of global warming in the UK but the story is more complicated than that.

"There are more egrets in Europe now because of changes in farming, and because we now protect these birds rather than persecute them."

Officially, a white Christmas takes place when a snowflake falls at a recognised Met Office monitoring station between midnight on Christmas Eve and midnight on Christmas Day.

A Met Office spokesman said: "We could have the bizarre situation where Hampshire and Southampton are covered in snow on December 23 and it still would not be an official white Christmas."

Bookies are laying on odds of three to one for a white Christmas.