Bugs on windscreens

[redsturgeon]

I have noticed that the number of bugs squashed on my windscreen after a long journey seems to be lower than in days of yore.

This is a documented phenomenon and there is an ongoing surveys to record this.

It starts on June 1st 2023, I will be taking part.

https://www.buglife.org.uk/get-involved ... gs-matter/

It has been found that the number of bugs recorded has dropped by 64% since 2004.

John

[pje16]

I noticed that 4 or 5 years ago on my journeys from London to Durham (so all the way up the A1)
My number plate was clean, not spattered the way it used to be

[BullDog]

A noticeable deterioration in bug life for certain. On a summer evening going out for a ride on my motorcycle, the helmet and visor would be absolutely splattered with bugs. Now, there might be one or two or not even that. There's something very, very wrong in the world of bugs.

Slightly tangential but my buddlia, lavender and the like were almost entirely bereft of butterflies this summer. Not too bad for bees and hover flies but a terrible year for butterflies. It's very worrying.

[88V8]

I have noticed that the number of bugs squashed on my windscreen after a long journey seems to be lower than in days of yore.

Yes, our excessive population and obsession with cheap food has done a pretty good job of trashing the natural world, including insects and the birds that feed on them.

I remember in the 60s the screen, the headlamps, would be coated with deceased bugs. In fact one could buy gadgets to put on the bonnet that were supposed to deflect the bugs.

Unfortunately with each generation we forget the way things were and just accept the debased present as 'normal'.

An extract from the monthly Vine House Farm newsletter
Twenty five years ago, I could see 1500-2000 Lapwings on fields around Deeping St Nicholas, feeding on the remains of oilseed rape fields. By remains, I mean the insects that were feeding on the crop, mainly slugs. Today the Lapwings numbers are about 200. They weren’t local birds, as we never had that quantity breeding locally, I thought they came from the other side of the North sea. We would also have a few hundred Meadow Pipits feeding on our organic clover field and they’re not about now either. Many were continental birds as I’d seen them arriving on the sea bank at Holbeach Marsh.

We can say the same about insects - it doesn’t need an ornithologist to count them, we can see that we just don’t get the flies on the front of our cars like we used to. In the last 60 years Swallows have declined by 90% in this village and that is where I put the decline in wildlife in this village, only 10% of the wildlife there was 60 years ago.

Of course that’s not quite true, 60 years ago there were no Badgers, very few Foxes, no Carrion Crows, Magpies, Buzzards, Kites, Marsh Harriers, Lesser Black Backed Gulls or Otters in this village and far less cars. If you like to see the raptors soaring, and I have to admit it is a fine sight, then wildlife is doing very well. Our lifestyle suits those large animals and birds, free range hens, reared pheasants, dustbins, fisheries and vehicles on the roads provide the larger birds and animals with a surplus of food which increases their populations. If we were able to weigh all the wildlife today compared to 60 years ago, maybe we would find the weight of it all would be similar. So the average person may think what are we worrying about, but I know that our lifestyle is catastrophic to wildlife.

V8

[pje16]

I remember in the 60s the screen, the headlamps, would be coated with deceased bugs. In fact one could buy gadgets to put on the bonnet that were supposed to deflect the bugs.
V8

Very interesting link
you have to email to find out about
"Gear and suicide knobs"
What on earth is the latter?

[Lootman]

There's something very, very wrong in the world of bugs.

People really do not like bugs and the widespread use of insecticides is presumably effective.

The main victims are presumably the animals that like to eat bugs? Possibly there are fewer of those as well? Or are there?

There are still a billion ants in my back garden.

[BullDog]

There's something very, very wrong in the world of bugs.

People really do not like bugs and the widespread use of insecticides is presumably effective.

The main victims are presumably the animals that like to eat bugs? Possibly there are fewer of those as well? Or are there?

There are still a billion ants in my back garden.

Good question. There are formerly very common birds that I now never see, ever. And several species that I might see once or twice a year that used to be a daily sighting. I guess the diet of them was mostly bugs and there's definitely far fewer of them. I cannot recall the last time I heard a cuckoo. They were very common indeed round here. They (used to mostly) eat bugs?

Living in a semi rural area, the last two decades especially, the concreting over of thousands of acres of farmland for houses and warehouses can't be doing the bugs and the critters that feed on them much good either.

I doubt the difference between one billion and two billion ants is very noticeable though?

[chas49]

I remember in the 60s the screen, the headlamps, would be coated with deceased bugs. In fact one could buy gadgets to put on the bonnet that were supposed to deflect the bugs.
V8

Very interesting link
you have to email to find out about
"Gear and suicide knobs"
What on earth is the latter?

The "Steering Wheel Spinner Knob" was invented by Joel R. Thorp of Wisconsin in 1936.[3] The Brodie name is a reference to Steve Brodie and was meant to describe all manner of reckless stunts.[4] The device is often called a "suicide knob" because of being notoriously useless for controlling the wheel during an emergency

Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brodie_knob

[Nimrod103]

And on cue, in today's Daily Mail:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... mbers.html

[Lootman]

And on cue, in today's Daily Mail:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... mbers.html

I liked the "Bugs (Lives?) Matter" sign on the Splatometer.

[DrFfybes]

Since getting another bike on the road this year (OK, last year but I hardly used it) I noticed there seems to be more than I remember from 10 years or so ago.

OK, not the vision obscuring numbers of my youth, but numbers do seem to be up.

Perhaps Shropshire farmers use different pesticides to Devon ones.

Paul