BBC reporting

[countrryboy]

Prob more to do with the increase of agri- insecticides and
sewage-laden rivers over the last 60 years than a few warm summers

I'm the same as Jon p above, even since I've started driving almost 30yrs or so.
.
While I could agree with the above in arable areas or atleast undertstand it, even intensive dairy areas where possibly due more to changing species in sward ( more rye grass %) and being cut so early and often.
But I live in a more upland sheep area I seriously doubt any drastic increase in agri insecticide, and even the grass/sward won't have changed massively from the past.

In fact possibly less chemicals now as all the 'good'old sheep dips are banned

 

[finnbear270]

No shortage of blue bottles & parlour flies round here

 

[old 30-06]

Less bugs in England certainly, but as soon as you get north of the border into Scotland they dramatically increase.

 

[gixer1]

So the BBC are being told by Environmentalists that a hot June is killing fish in the rivers and there are no insects about. Where do they find these idiots? I suppose it is true and it's nothing to do with sewage and chemicals being discharged neat from sewage works into the water.
Insects? Well obviously they very rarely visit the rural areas. Give them a day with me or any other keeper amongst the midges, cleggs and other annoying insects and see how they speak about insects then. The only good thing is there are so many about that they will fatten the partridge chicks so they make better meals for the avian brigade.
What rubbish they feed us with.

I’m our case the seals are wiping out the salmon before they can head up the rivers - there are huge colonies of them waiting at the mouths of the rivers - not a coincidence! Yet, because the seals are fluffy with big eyes they won’t allow a cull….

 

[Bo Diddley]

Certainly less insect life in Norfolk, as a kid I would walk home down the lanes at dusk and all you could hear was the chirp of grasshoppers, the only place I hear this now is along a stretch of the river Nar I sometimes flyfish. Likewise, my 1st car & motorbike would be covered with bugs when I got home. The cause is probably a little bit of everything, insecticides/pesticides, and rising temperatures .
We have plenty of pondlife though, mostly to be seen walking around the local market town with a can of beer in hand, sometimes sitting on a bench in the sunshine or by the small lake in town smoking a spliff and being a nuisance....

 

[Ratel]

I’m our case the seals are wiping out the salmon before they can head up the rivers - there are huge colonies of them waiting at the mouths of the rivers - not a coincidence! Yet, because the seals are fluffy with big eyes they won’t allow a cull….

Certainly less insect life in Norfolk, as a kid I would walk home down the lanes at dusk and all you could hear was the chirp of grasshoppers, the only place I hear this now is along a stretch of the river Nar I sometimes flyfish. Likewise, my 1st car & motorbike would be covered with bugs when I got home. The cause is probably a little bit of everything, insecticides/pesticides, and rising temperatures .
We have plenty of pondlife though, mostly to be seen walking around the local market town with a can of beer in hand, sometimes sitting on a bench in the sunshine or by the small lake in town smoking a spliff and being a nuisance....

Ah they must be the Swaffham mutants.

 

[jall55]

So the BBC are being told by Environmentalists that a hot June is killing fish in the rivers and there are no insects about. Where do they find these idiots? I suppose it is true and it's nothing to do with sewage and chemicals being discharged neat from sewage works into the water.
Insects? Well obviously they very rarely visit the rural areas. Give them a day with me or any other keeper amongst the midges, cleggs and other annoying insects and see how they speak about insects then. The only good thing is there are so many about that they will fatten the partridge chicks so they make better meals for the avian brigade.
What rubbish they feed us with.

Our farm is in HLS - we have flower margin galore- more wild bird plots and pollen plots than you can shake a stick at - clearfelled 100 acres thats now acres and acres of bluebell and then fox glove - small ponds and pools - traditional hay meadows - numerous hedges and coppice BUT this year there are less insects than last - a lot less

Why - no idea - but i have hardly seen a wasp ! The one thing that has done well though is the meadow butterflies

 

[Bowland blades]

So from what you are all saying, the damage is very real, and it is almost certainly man-made... be it via global warming or just mindless destruction of wildlife habitat.

To be blunt its government policing itself , never going to work! Independent River boards with powers to actually bang government departments and the mega firms into court over thier bad ideas are what is required !

There are definitely less insects now then in the late 1970’s / early 80’s

I can remember getting sent out as a kid to clean the insects of my fathers Ford Capri windscreen, you could not put your finger between them there were that many on there after a motorway run.

Hardly any on my vehicle now in comparison.

Synthetic bug killing chemicals where invented. Everything ends up in the water , even if its sprayed well away from water

 

[Bo Diddley]

Ah they must be the Swaffham mutants

Yes, that lad Carrol who won the lottery has a lot to answer for

 

[bowji john]

When you have the politicisation of science you get pseudoscience

I remember the ‘country ways’ guy years ago talking about ‘false Art’ when talking about modern art

He abbreviated it to FART

Perhaps we can come up with a descriptive title for this very dangerous misrepresentation of reality

 

[Ratel]

Our farm is in HLS - we have flower margin galore- more wild bird plots and pollen plots than you can shake a stick at - clearfelled 100 acres thats now acres and acres of bluebell and then fox glove - small ponds and pools - traditional hay meadows - numerous hedges and coppice BUT this year there are less insects than last - a lot less

Why - no idea - but i have hardly seen a wasp ! The one thing that has done well though is the meadow butterflies

Funny that ref insects, we are mowed out with them along with a couple of my keeper pals. But the one thing we don't have are butterflies. I saw a couple of peacocks in May but in the past fortnight just two Comma's and one female Brimstone. These were in my garden.

 

[jall55]

Funny that ref insects, we are mowed out with them along with a couple of my keeper pals. But the one thing we don't have are butterflies. I saw a couple of peacocks in May but in the past fortnight just two Comma's and one female Brimstone. These were in my garden.

We must have thousands of butterflies in our meadows and our chicory and phacelia is moving with them

We had average numbers of Hawthorn fly - have great numbers of moths - but very few wasps / hover flies

The mayfly hatch was virtually non existent

Dragon and damsel flies in pretty low numbers for the habitat available and previous years

On the positive i found my first set of newts in a chain of ponds i built and also a number of slow worms

Ducks species are doing incredible and so are residual game birds - even seen the odd small brood of Greys

Be interesting to see how insect numbers develop now the Knapweed is flowering - they really really love this stuff

 

[old keeper]

When I was a lad I collected butterflies and moths, the fields were literally alive with them. In some meadows, you would put up clouds of butterflies with every step. Although there are a few more this year normally you can walk around fields and be lucky to see more than half a dozen.
As for bugs, when I started motorcycling in the early fifties you got absolutely plastered with them. I remember riding down from the lake district and having to stop to clean my goggles as it was almost impossible to see through them, now fly squash on windscreens is a thing of the past.

 

[Bo Diddley]

Ducks species are doing incredible

Do you have your ponds fenced to stop otters from getting to the ducklings?
I've watched otters hunting ducklings on Scoulton mere, which is an SSSI, they are quite something to watch when they are hunting, quite relentless. Not a single duck in residence by the autumn.

 

[Ratel]

Round here no ducklings, Kites are adept at taking them off the water. Reckon they're a cross with Ospreys. Stable flies and cleggs are at it in my parish, plenty of damsel flies about but there's also a funny flat kind of fly hammering a mate. He reckons it's worse than a tetse, could be one of the horse flies and it loves pheasant release pens. He's lumps and bumps all over.

 

[Bo Diddley]

I watched a Hobby for the first time in my 57 years taking dragonflies at Thompson Watering a week ago, incredible little birds.

 

[Dodder]

I watched a Hobby for the first time in my 57 years taking dragonflies at Thompson Watering a week ago, incredible little birds.

Lucky you, I've only ever had fairly fleeting views of Hobbies. A mate of mine seems to watch them doing this most summers and that is inside the M25!
I have no idea why, but years ago after a long drive in the summer you almost couldn't see out of the windscreen due to splatted bugs, but these days hardly any.
Used to see lots of Swallows & Martins too but these days I get quite excited if I spot one. Hardly seen any Butterflies this year and I live in rural Kent. Seems to me the only species thriving round here are the Corvids and Squizzers...

 

[AGR]

I am a fishing guide in Devon, I fish spate rivers straight off Dartmoor.
I have been doing this a long, long time, and I have noticed a reduction in aquatic insect life over the years, as to the cause I'm not qualified to say.
I have heard that dogs in and out of rivers and the flea chemicals on the skin can reduce insect life, I can't believe that though as they must surely be very diluted.
We are in drought conditions, the Salmon and Sea Trout (those that have managed to make it up stream) are struggling in the low water/oxygen conditions, what doesn't help is miles of our local river Teign is owned by the National/Woodland trust, they have created a 'playground' and ruined the peace and tranquillity that used to exist.
The long slow pools that were a haven for migratory fish have become swimming pools for large lard arsed holidaymakers!

I fish the Exe and I think a lot of the problem is extraction. A local farmer, I was told, had his bore hole run dry and had to drill down another 100ft to reach water.
Apparently the Exe runs 2ft shallower now than it did 50 years ago, and this is repeated all over the country.
A lot of farms have brown water run off into ditches and streams which should really be running through reed beds to clean them up, so they probably enjoy the fact that all eyes are on the water companies and their sewage spills. On top of that we have road run off which is quite polluting.
So we have a lot less water and increased pollution. It's not rocket science.

 

[foxhunter]

Another huge problem for the fish is the amount of cormorants inland decimating stocks along with sewage discharge.

 

[Bo Diddley]

cormorants inland

Your true there brother.
The tiny bit of the Nar I sometimes fish is almost little more than a ditch sometimes by the end of a bad summer and the black menace can be found hunting for the few brownies and even scarcer chub, they are shoulder to shoulder with an otter or two on a bad day