Foxes, Badgers, Rats and Rabbits

[Anno]

18 hours ago, Billhook said:

Just sitting on a bench at the log cabin by the lake in the first sunshine for a while and the air is full of buzzing insects, flies and bumblebees in spite of Attenborough’s claims that they are depleted.  
 

its not just Attenborough, you should have  noticed that over the last 2 decades the amounts of insects hiting the front of your vehicle when driving distances as decreased to practically nothing.

 

I have run a light trap to monitor moths on various sites and to collect my data for home, twenty years ago I was literally shovelling out large moths like yellow Underwings, trapped by the hundreds, these days I am lucky to hit double figures

[sime42]

12 minutes ago, Anno said:

its not just Attenborough, you should have  noticed that over the last 2 decades the amounts of insects hiting the front of your vehicle when driving distances as decreased to practically nothing.

 

I have run a light trap to monitor moths on various sites and to collect my data for home, twenty years ago I was literally shovelling out large moths like yellow Underwings, trapped by the hundreds, these days I am lucky to hit double figures

UK's flying insects have declined by 60% in 20 years

WWW.NHM.AC.UK

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The UK's insect population has fallen sharply as the invertebrates are affected by rising temperatures and fragmented...

 

 

[Stere]

Least Puffins have increased recently.

 

No idea why must be more food or less rats?

 

 

 

 

[scbk]

Must've been a good year for the moles (round here anyway).

More mole hills than I can ever remember seeing, this winter/spring

[Billhook]

On 21/03/2023 at 11:42, GarethM said:

Don't think anyone has an adversion to bats, it's more the council's heaping on yet more surveys and cost before they'll even look at an application.

 

Last bat survey cost around 1300 plus the 600 for the basic survey. Always written in such vague noncommittal terms even when they aren't living in the building.

 

I would agree with having bat roosts built into one end gables and maybe bird nest boxes built into the brickwork at a so many per m providing it's say 3m above ground.

I built a serious des res bat box a few years ago, thought I had picked the perfect site and orientation, but so far not a sign.  However at the log cabin there is a lot of activity which I think is probably due to the insect life available on the lake.  They also like spaces in the foam insulation in the roof of our old disused potato store brick building.

[john87]

On 18/02/2023 at 21:57, Macpherson said:

Not that long ago when I was young it was impossible to drive / ride anywhere fast without accumulating thousands of insects on your windscreen / visor... but not anymore, still almost no one notices...

Yes, very true. When i was a kid in the 1960's if you went for a ride on a summers evening, or a long motorway ride, the front of the car and the windsceen would be absolutely covered with insects as you say..

 

Not seen that for decades.. Forgotten about it to be honest..

 

john

[Billhook]

On 03/04/2023 at 08:34, Anno said:

its not just Attenborough, you should have  noticed that over the last 2 decades the amounts of insects hiting the front of your vehicle when driving distances as decreased to practically nothing.

 

I have run a light trap to monitor moths on various sites and to collect my data for home, twenty years ago I was literally shovelling out large moths like yellow Underwings, trapped by the hundreds, these days I am lucky to hit double figures

Father used to run a moth trap together with an old surgeon friend and they used to log their count each day.  I think they sent the results eventually to the Norwich Natural History Museum.  Yes there were more moths  about and I rarely see them coming to the light at night.

There may be other factors to take into account such as the increase in bat numbers. Same with insects on windscreens.  Firstly there are so many more cars on the roads, secondly cars are more aerodynamic, and there is also the possibility that insects have evolved to avoid roads

But yes, it is true that there has been a general vast decline, except at our lake which also ruins my bat theory as there are so many pipistrelles there!

[Macpherson]

14 hours ago, john87 said:

Not seen that for decades.. Forgotten about it to be honest..

 

Yep, it's interesting that it's only as you get older and you have a longer overview of the decades gone past that it becomes easy to notice stuff that's going wrong in nature while the younger generations just take today's situation to be ' normal '... which I suppose for them it is.

 

Although it probably varies from place to place the decline over the last 30 years or so of all forms of wildlife in the parts of Scotland that I frequent is simply massive ... whether insects, birds mammals or fish, they're all vanishing... not to mention all the different species of tree that seem to be in trouble.👎

[daltontrees]

3 hours ago, Macpherson said:

 

Yep, it's interesting that it's only as you get older and you have a longer overview of the decades gone past that it becomes easy to notice stuff that's going wrong in nature while the younger generations just take today's situation to be ' normal '... which I suppose for them it is.

 

Although it probably varies from place to place the decline over the last 30 years or so of all forms of wildlife in the parts of Scotland that I frequent is simply massive ... whether insects, birds mammals or fish, they're all vanishing... not to mention all the different species of tree that seem to be in trouble.👎

It's all rather depressing. There's one small consolation and that is that I have noticed less midges in suburbia than used to be. Can't stand midges, they drive me nearly out off my mind.  Just looking for a positive...

[AHPP]

8 hours ago, Billhook said:

Norwich Natural History Museum

I snort laughed.