Thirty years ago if I rode a motorcycle on a motorway,in summer,I'd get home,take my helmet off and wonder how I managed to see at all through all the dead bugs on the visor.Nowadays I'll make a similar journey by bike in summer and only get 2 or 3 dead insects on my visor.Something is dramatically different today from 3 decades ago.
@@dast6915 What? There is no solid evidence to say that mobile phone use harms humans (though I wouldn't discount some connection totally, some studies find loose correlations between poor health and heavy mobile phone use), now you are trying to connect it to harming wildlife? I don't wish to sound rude, but nor do I like letting such things passed unchallenged - to me the idea sounds like nonsense. I'm no scientist but I regularly read a science magazine (New Scientist) as well as watching documentaries on the BBC (which is a reputable broadcaster). Besides which the decline began several decades ago, it is nothing to do with mobiles etc. Things were better than 30 years ago and indeed the decline may be accelerating, but that's due to a further increase in pesticide use and habitat loss.
Same here, bees have been dying now for a number of years going back to 2009 to my knowledge, I would see many dead bees and over the course of 7 years many of my high yielding nectar plats grew silent, less and less bees. My large garden then was open and full of vegetation, plant, shrubs and trees, my garden was a heaven for nature. So too now at another property many miles away, still the bees die?
We have lots of birds, bees, frogs and even hedgehogs etc, but our (jungle)garden is not like the rest near us, you know the type, formal, lawn cut to 10 mm, small shrubs about 10 inch tall, slug pellet users, killing sprays, then people wonder why there is no wildlife around, it's the Human who thinks a dolls house garden looks pretty ! Gaz UK.
I've lost all my bee hives. All warre hives with no treatment. My oldest was 8 years and very strong. Obviously, all the queens failed to reproduced and as I do minimal interference, nature took its course. Zero signs of varroa or any other diseases. Now I know honey bees aren't in short supply but the fact that all the hives got wiped out makes you wonder what's out there affecting the ecosystem.
KHALOSPIRIT. YES THE LIME TREES ARE STILL GIVING OFF A PUNGENT SCENT, SIMILAR TOO A FEMALES EXPENSIVE PERFUME, BUT STILL NO BEES OR ANY INSECTS AROUND THEM. IT'S USUALLY VERY BUSY AROUND THESE TREES AT THIS TIME OF YEAR. I'M VERY CONCERNED BY IT.😢
@@Peter-cz8hx - I think the unseasonably cold weather earlier in the year has a lot to do with it. We had some heavy frosts in April, which may have wiped out many of the young insects.
I think there are multiple reasons. Sky trail chemicals, pesticides and the new radio towers just put up, they all have the same effect on the insects.
The silent spring is coming true. A truly frightening book. Rachel Carson in the early sixties warned us all but we paid no heed and now we are reaping the consequences.
The US Govermment tried to silence her and generally made her life difficult. They hated the fact that she was telling the truth about pesticides. Sadly, more than half a century later, her prophecies have proved to be correct, yet those in power still advocate the use of more pesticides, along with GM crops.
Dave, I admire your optimism, at the moment the absence of many familiar garden visitors is depressing. Our garden is designed to promote insects and bees, they are now rare. We used to shut the bathroom window whilst teeth brushing at night to prevent moths and flies visiting. None this year, no bats, no fly splattered windscreens, no house Martins or swallows. We are on course to make our world uninhabitable, we are a plague. The five white tailed bees I’ve seen are walking home without wings!
@@bartholomew941I agree , accept "being a child of God" . If the commenter is a believer in Jesus Christ , then yes . If not , then no . We humans are all Gods creation , but not His children unless born again from above . Have a Grace filled day brother 😊 🏴♥️🇮🇱✝️
If we aren't vigilant with discouragement, we have an annual paper wasp nest above our back door. It's apparently prime wasp real estate. This year, there are only a few residents.
Yes a bad year for wasps and bees. Even after the mild and wet winter I saw a fair number of queen bees and wasps and the overwintering butterflies at the end of march. But then after weeks of wet weather they mostly disappeared. No wasp, tortoiseshell or peacock nests seen and the various bumblebees are a bit sparse.
As a professional gardener my experience away from human induced reduction I have always found that temperature and rain have a huge impact on insect numbers as the season progresses especially dependant on a cold or hot spring. That’s just my visual experience being up close on a daily basis. On the whole there’s definitely a huge reduction in the past decade
Thank you so much, Professor Goulson, for your research, your books, your videos and for raising awareness that these magnificent creatures are in need of our help!
I've been thinking this 😮 even a lack of my nemesis cabbage white butterfly 😮 started to notice how hungry the birds are, eating anything I've not covered in my veg beds😮 I'm definitely going to make some bug motels 🧑🌾🌱 I live in the countryside and the difference this year is quite shocking 🐝🦋🦗🪲
Living on the N W Coast of Scotland we would be getting eaten alive by now. But after the male midge hatched we got the female hatch which lasted about a week before weather that isn’t dissimilar to our winters arrived, no midges now, and although some folk may welcome this they’re a valuable source of food for many birds and insects.
@@davegoulson6831 Not very politically astute, I agree about the seriousness but don't automatically vote Green, it's a deeply communistic party. Do what you can in your life, voting isn't enough, in truth it isn't anything.
I’m in the lucky circumstance to have both a house with a small garden in the Netherlands and one with a larger plot in Abruzzo, Italy. The differences in wildlife couldn’t be more gigantic, I think. In my Dutch garden there’s a butterfly every now and then, some bumblebees and bees (mostly honeybees) and the dayly tits and blackbirds. Sometimes I see a hedgehog walking outside my garden doors in the evening. On my Italian plot there are hundreds of butterflies on a daily basis, from February into November, scores of bumblebees, solitary bees, paperwasps and parasitic wasps, beetles small and large. These critters bring in loads of birds like the ones you’ve mentioned and then some. I think every attentive person that has lived with a garden for the last few decades should have been able to have noticed the decline in the number of insects and birds. I know I have, and it’s probably one of the main reasons for me to have bought the house in Italy. In rural Italy there’s still predominantly small scale farming with a large variety of crops. In between the fields there are many spaces not used by humans; overgrown ruins, small and larger woods, little river valleys, rocky outcrops. Most road verges are mown only once or twice a year and boast tens of different species of wild flower per square metre. What I see in Italy at least gives me a small amount of hope that the tide can still be turned. I am afraid, in the other hand, that society will keep on snowballing towards further destruction of nature (and with that, itself).
Dutch is beautifull country, but also very industrial. Ive never seen such industrial spaces as in Rotterdam region. You car ride and ride and see only chemical factories, siloses, warehouses, ports. I get that its main port for mainland Europe, but still look devastating. You have plenty of nature and green spaces in between cities and in the cities, but overall you dont have that much of it. I think we humans think about developed countries in a wrong way. We look at how good we use and abuse nature and call that GDP growth, when in fact its nature destruction. I am not pointing fingers at Holland, becouse the problem is global. Thanks for sharing your story.
Beautifully put friend. I too have a small farm in Warwickshire, England and now a small farm in Abruzzo. It is my greatest pain that Britain came out of the EU because now I cannot stay long in Italy. Nevertheless, I love it there. This year in Warwickshire has been the worst decline in insect population - the lime trees were empty, the blackberries I could count the bees on one hand every day. Bumblebees are just not evident in any numbers at all. It is a disaster. But around us is pasture without wildflowers or annual grasses. Our farms rely completely on chemicals. Our roadsides are continuously cut down to the bare earth. I am very sad. 😔
In Oxfordshire we have loads of birds, pigeons everywhere, robins,blue tits, black birds,fly's everywhere, mosquitos with a funny tail ,rats spider everywhere too
It’s always so exciting to hear somebody who’s doing well, you are such a contributor, we all applaud you for your good Fortune, gosh thanks, I’m not sure how others feel but I for applause you for talking about how great things are for you, congratulations
People are having enough trouble paying bills and putting food on the table , the interest is mostly found in supported youth unless they're paying their way . People , especially those from other countries look on gardens as an unnecessary burden
@@stephenrice4554 Our Countryside and Rivers are not gardens. These are under government mandates to be looked after and protected and currently they are not.
This is so depressing. How I wish I could go back a hundred years just to walk around for a while and look and listen to the world. I remember even 15 - 20 years ago how many more butterflies, bees, and birds there seemed to be. Don't even remember when I last saw a wasp.
I do think there are yearly variations. I hadn’t seen wasps much until a few years ago, but we have had several nests near us. Last year I could count 5 nests. Same with the bees. I agree this year is quiet, but a couple of years ago I knew of several swarms near me. But the house martins and swallows are doing well here. I even spot swifts as well. The house martins are building new nests on the house even. So there are signs and good news. A beautiful butterfly has just landed near me as I type. Cotswolds
Depends what plants you have in your garden. Certain flowers attract hover fly's which are wasps favourite prey and I see lots in my garden hunting. Try planting a larger variety of plants
I have noticed this for a few years. We used to have moths and mosquitos, wasps and bees in our garden, with our pet cat launching herself at moths against the patio door. This summer we can sit in the living room with the patio doors wide open, lights on, and no insects. We can sit in the garden on the lawn of an evening and not be bitten by midges. It's startling.
I have been noticing for years.10 years ago I drove Cornwall to Norfolk and no,insects on windscreen.In the 80’s my windscreen was covered every day in summer.So yes I am panicked. It’s very cold, hot water bottle weather.I grow veg and it’s a disaster.Not one tomato in my conservatory yet.The basil all died from cold.I live in a rural area near the sea.Everyday (almost) I see the sky covered in trails , the next day it’s cold and cloudy.Thats the climate change along with magnetic field being in collapse so you get so,are forcing. Green Party is not green.I discovered my electric car is very bad even.What a con.
It could be due to the better streamlining of modern cars. Old cars were very boxy and insects would hit rather than be diverted over by the cars aerodynamics
@@Realclimatescience222I instantly thought that was a really good point, but just remembered that in 2012 i bought a brand new Ford Focus. I put one of those sponges with a scouring pad in my boot, as I had to use it regularly (often daily) to clear the dead insects from my windscreen. The sponge is still there, but I'd forgotten all about it, and can't remember the last time I had to use it, 5 years ago maybe.
I've had 2 bees and 4 butterflies so far, im in Yorkshire ..for sure we can look at the weather patterns for clues , however i truly believe there are other issues at play...by all means.call me a conspiracy theorist , however i'm feeling uneasy about many things in this crazy world...
I have got around 8 buddleia bushes in my garden that are usually all covered in a variety of butterflies by late June, this year Ive seen only one or two and just a very few bees, it is very odd and sad!
I went for a walk through a small patch of local woodland yesterday. One footpath in particular is lined with honey sickle, buddleia, balsam, daisies etc. It was noticeable that the sound of birds singing and insects buzzing was so missed!
I'm a beekeeper and the hives seem to attract bumblebees to nest close by as well as lots of other insects. There have been lots of honey bee losses due to the rain this year so I imagine it will have affected other species. They seem to be bouncing back now tho
six gee (is that censored) is already in the early stages. Some governments have had debates about the health affects of five, and scientists seem to be split over the issue as most tests have been on lab mice, sometimes showing health problems after long term exposure
@@MrVidification Yes, and what is odd is how people with a public presence are noticeably silent on the issue. It's bizarre to have a discussion about the environment whilst omitting the electromagnetic issue and the intense geo-engineering of our skies, blocking the sun.
How can a man so in tune with nature not notice or mention the g£0 £ng£n££ring but insted plugs his book and have a political waffle instead? Be aware of the gatekeepers for they are many and everywhere.
I see the masts go up, and I see the trails being laid in the sky. And then the sun is but a memory, the rain soaks and floods, and the insects disappear. Without crops, and with sunshine, where do we go from here?
There's extremely heavy chemtrailing going on in Cornwall this past year, any blue skies are promptly swallowed by the countless jets spraying. They were even spraying late last night
Unfortunately it's worldwide and not just weather modification the chemtrails are also used to kill off the natural environment. Surprised the Prof doesn't mention them but then he either does or views such comments as this as conspiracy theory. Yes we're being conspired against by the financiers who hold the strings of our governments.
Yes Jake , the sky has some very peculiar cloud structures and weird formations I am ancient now but I have studied the skies quite a bit , as a retired pilot I can see the sky is often very abnormal , The BBC are saying that there is no Geo engineering happening but the atmosphere has been messed around with for 50+ years . A small amount of research soon uncovers their actions .
Bees in my garden have been decreasing year on year for at least five years, lavender for example now devoid of bees on warm days where in the past was absolutely alive, says it all for me.
Visited the unique island of Sark last year. It has no vehicles, no intensive farming methods, very little phone network. My overwhelming memory was the intense buzz of insects amongst all the trees and bushes.
Geoengineered weather and “fivegee”. Four has been proved to affect fauna and flora so us too, five is beyond comprehension. Look forward to reading your book. Thank you 💕🌿
As a Gardener I've definitely noticed the decline for years, especially this year. On all sorts of plants and flowers that are usually covered. And some plants are out of sync, and flowering early. Less insects less bird variety hardly ever see a bat. It's sad.
I've noticed decreasing insect activity over the past 4 years in SC, USA but this is the first I've noticed the plants out of sync during the Summer. Some grasses have begun going to seed months early and one fall blooming bushy Aster began flowering about a month ago, well before our recent high temps. It's very unsettling.
You have highlighted something that has been of major concern to me for a long time! There has been no 'boom and bust' in the insect population for a couple of decades or more. As far as I can see, it is all just bust!!! I think that, to a large extent, modern agricultural policies and practises have DECIMATED the insect life! If we have broken a link in the natural food chain, then everything is going to collapse 😮 I am just dumbfounded that we are freaking out over CO2 and completely blind to the fact that we have virtually destroyed this vital link in the natural chain. This is indeed the biggest crisis that we are facing right now, but unfortunately nothing is getting done about it. Nothing! As many people have commented, I remember in the 80s when a single day's drive in Summer would result in my car being plastered in bugs... but today, a whole month of driving wouldn't see a fraction of that amount! It is so evident - as obvious as the nose on your face... but nothing is being done about it. And I think that the reason nothing is being done about simply boils down to the fact that the population has exploded and the primary need to feed that population has trumped every other concern.
I'm a trout fisher, fishing in streams. I don't see enough insects, large enough to be trout food, and I'm not bothered enough by mosquitos as I should be!
Yip. Personally I've had a good(ISH) year for butterflies and bees, but that's because of the places I've gone. Our little garden, despite being small, has been doing ok for bees ( been hotels and native flowers do work-- as does letting grass grow). , but long term trends are nothing short of disastrous. Do what you can people !
we have a shed that fell down years ago but kept as its a mountain of honeysuckle now in full bloom, no bees no butterflies this year, i think its the 5G in the area killing them
My garden is designed around insects, especially pollinators. My numbers are well down and my huge colony of solitary bees emerged healthy but then just vanished (not found any dead ones under their boxes).
I do the same here in my garden and any bees I am seeing are tiny. I did find a Red Admiral caterpillar on my nettle patch today which cheered me up as I haven't seen any butterflies for weeks. Hopefully that will improve as the caterpillars pupate and emerge. Fingers crossed
Twenty years ago I was flying my paramotor around 1500foot above rural Scotland, when I became aware of a very sudden chemical smell, which momentarily confused me. I looked around, and saw a tractor spraying a field about a mile upwind; a thermal had lifted the spray chemical up into the air. This eventually will have settled back again on the ground, be that ground designated organic or otherwise - what goes up must come down. Over 30,000 tonnes of one chemical alone (glyphosate) is routinely sprayed on our green and pleasant land, and during the time this has become the norm, so has the increase in incidents of allergies and food intolerances among the population. It seems that for all our cleverness, we overlook the ‘tragedy of the commons’, and place personal enrichment and tolerance of harmful practices to all life above maintaining a healthy environment for all life forms.
@@yvonnestrid As I'm sure you don't know, 5G is just a communications protocol. It uses exactly the same frequency bands as earlier protocols - in fact 3G is at end of life to make room for it. And a key aspect of 5G is lower power and better targeting.
The schumann resonance of the earth has been artificially raised from 7.83 hz to over a 100 hz on selected areas affecting the health of every living thing on the planet its affecting heart arrhythmias dna building imunne responce through the electrical functions of the body all deliberate and the perpetraters protected.
When i was a kid every summer there were literally thousands of coloured butterflies and the obligatory cabbage whites - i have seen about 5 coloured butterflies in my garden this year
Long time gardener and amateur entomologist, and there IS something seriously going on with the insect population. I’ve been noticing a steady decline over the last decade or so, and these last two years, it’s fallen off the cliff. No bees of any kind, no butterflies, no hoverflies, etc. I’ve had to resort to hand pollinating everything. I live in NY, by the way. Everyone I talk to says the same thing.
Indeed. The c-trails are everywhere, daily. Nano particles of aluminium, barium, strontium among other things. It's not a hidden technology, there's plenty of info about it. Look up "stratospheric injection" and geo engineering. This chap needs new glaif he's not seeing what goes on in the Sussex skies DAILY.
I have also noticed this . No butterfly’s home or allotment, got lots bee loving flowers but only a couple of bees at a time. This is unusual. I am concerned .🐝
I live in a new estate, people don't have flowers in their gardens so start planting and they'll come. Too many people are going for plastic lawns around my way.
I have turned my sisters lawn into a flower meadow, filled the borders with herbacious perennials, and stocked her pond with plants and sticklebacks! I will never use chemicals and have started a compost heap. I will just have to wait for the wee beasties to turn up!
Well, I am not sure. If you see your lavender every year full of bees, also bumble bees, and this year zero, it is strange. I hope you are right and that we will see some life coming back in the next weeks. To me, being older, this is not normal and it is concerning. I have not seen this before in my life, this total lack of insects.
I agree. My garden in SE Cornwall is full of vegetables and as many insect friendly plants as I can fit in. Lavender hedge is usually humming with Bees but this year nothing!! I took my kids to the Eden Project when they were young and one particular info display walked us through a world without insects. Let's just say, it's best to avoid that but I am very worried. No butterflies to speak of either. Hope its just a blip. 😢
I live in South Korea, and I also worry about climate change because I am a novice beekeeper. I have no big land, so I cannot take something big action. For now, I'm kind of experimenting with what to plant if I have bigger land later on. The rainy season starts in my country now. Despite the bad weather, many hoverflies, carpenter bees (Xylocopa appendicula), and honey bees (Apis cerana, Apis mellifera) visit my tiny garden. English lavenders, Wild bergamots, Peppermints, and Apple mints grow in my garden. They seem to love these plants very much. I am also observing the domestic plants around me. Despite the bad news that bees are dying, bees and other insects are still in place. Because of all these little things it still looks like something can be done. I hope I can help at least a little to improve the surrounding vegetation for bees (especially. 🙂) and other insects.
I live in Paisley in Scotland, 100m or so from the Glennifer Braes which is full of various different wildflowers, heathers, wooded areas, etc. I loved walking over the braes years ago, but hated the hassle from all the wasps/ bees, but for the last 3yrs when i go for a walk up there, i'm lucky if i see a half dozen in a 5-6hr space. I've read in articles about the subject that this 'thing' is to blame, someone else says it's this other 'thing'. I don't know what exactly is the cause of this, but suspect all the suspected causes are playing a part, but some or one more than others. Whatever is to blame, if nothing is done to get things going back in the right direction, we won't have to worry about the Government shutting down farms for climate change reasons, there will be no pollinators for certain crops, (i had no idea just how many different crops they pollinated) the farms will go out of business, unless they can diversify their business model. Even worse, we will have no crops or way less crops to harvest. I pray that Mother Nature will naturally repair this if left to it's own devices, but i feel that is more wishful thinking than anything.
I also live in East Sussex, and it's early July. I have not seen one butterfly or housemartin and very few bees. It is true what the professor said insect numbers are drastically low. Of course, other people will say there are plenty of insects where they live, but that doesn't make up for the overall decline. Insects are part of a food chain. Other creatures depend on them for food. We humans depend on insects for pollination of food crops. When farmers spray pesticides on their crops to keep insect pests off their crops, they inadvertently kill pollinators. Albert Einstein said, " When the bees go, we go."
😢my allotment in Peacehaven is covered in Lavender bushes and usually loads of bumble and other bees. Not one have I seen so far or on walks in the local countryside. I would usually applaud the absent of the Cabbage White but I am finding it all pretty eerie .
Thankyou for this. I sometimes feel a bit lonely in my small eco friendly practices, but I love the buzz of life in the garden and the ‘life factory’ of my composting corner!
there are more people doing this. dont feel lonely. I do not use chemicals, lots of wild plants, composting etc. Our trail camera shows foxes, hedgehogs and recently a badger. And we are on the outskirts of a town, not the countryside
@@mrsp3992 , look up .gov.UK website & go to geoengineering, what they describe it to look like is exactly what is happening & google bees & aluminum, lots & lots of info.
A friend and I were out for a walk yesterday and we were saying how we had not seen any butterflies this year. My garden is usually full of butterflies due to the planting I do. So far it hasn’t been a good summer. I’m in the north of England. I also remember the days when the front of your car would be covered in dead insects at times!😏
Yep I have noticed a massive absence of insect life this year all my pollinator friendly plants are devoid of life day and night. In my 62yrs I have noticed an incredible decline in all our wild life and its due in the main to our activities, intensive farming, traffic, pollutants and continual loss of habitat. This needs reversing ASAP. The so called Climate Crisis should take a back door and lets concentrate on becoming sustainable. I share you observations. I live in rural South Devon and even here in the 12 yrs that I have lived here I have noticed sharp declines across the board. I am lucky that I have over an acre of garden and I am re-wilding I hope to see some sort of improvement soon. Unfortunately, I thing greed and stupidity will win the day until its too late.
I'm north devon/cornwall border, have you felt that this year it's partly due to the lack of sunshine? Here it's continual grey layer cloud with trails above, you often can see the sun is trying to come out but blocked by a white haze where all the trails have spread and joined to make a hazy white sky rather than a blue one, as we are at the coast we see this awful thick dark grey layer at the horizon over the sea and some days the sun will glimse out just at the very very end of the day as it falls below that grey layer - I can count the full sun days - with blue sky and no haze or trails - we've had this year on one hand
I too have noticed the lack of bees and insects this year. As I walk through the nature reserve I see very few of anything a couple of brown butterflies it is worrying.
Really interesting, I stopped using any chemicals in my garden several years ago, and I hope whilst tidy it can still attract wild life with a wide range of shrubs and herbaceous perennial plants, I'm a retired arboriculturist and I took your advice before seeing this article and voted with my heart!
I keep honeybees and deliberately let them swarm into the wild to help bolster local 'wild' populations. They have sent off at least 2 swarms this year , the remaining hives (2) are still strong. also seen ladybird larvae on my roses, lots of bumble bees, swallows and a cuckoo. WALES !😊
It is very interesting to read all the comments about the potential impacts on the insect populations. We have the widespread use of pesticides, we have electromagnetic frequencies, we have chemicals being sprayed in the air to affect the weather (FOI requests show this to be the case - poisons sprayed in many countries), weather patterns - cold and rain, reduced habitat - so we have been letting the land be more, less mowing and tidying, and climate change. There are probably other issues too we haven’t considered, such as genetically modified plants with ‘in-built’ toxins, which is less regulated now, and the consequences of which we have no idea! A bit like other GMO’s that have been used recently with haste and not enough honest scrutiny. I am concerned that the aspects of poisoning the plants and the wildlife is not being addressed, we are fobbed off by big corporations who pay off the government too and frankly it’s all about money. Then we are made to panic about our own activity contributing to the One Evil. How about the sun’s activity which impacts climate. So much we don’t know, but we’re not told that either.
Been a gardener for 30 years and I noticed the lack of bees earlier in the spring, but later in the summer when our lavendars were out there were quite a few bees. It has been a relatively cool year here in the Midlands and only got hot towards the end of July, this has almost certainly influenced the insect presence. The more we can create environments for insects in our gardens, the better.
Interesting video, thank you. I´m in Spain, an hour from the south coast, and 750 meters above sea level. I have most of the fruit trees you can grow here, I let the flowers grow and half my "garden" is totally inaccessible so I call it a nature reserve .... I should be surrounded by flies, on hanging sticky traps and buzzing round the room. There should be at least one in my glass of wine, and incessant landings on my bare arms (it´s 95ºF I´ve cut the sleeves off my shirt) but not a single fly. Earlier on in Spring there were no frog concerts, but now the cicadas are louder than my tinnitus. Ants are employing radar to detect a biscuit crumb at one hundred meters, their tiny dual carriageways wind for scores of meters through the dust. Wasps however are unusually rare, and the plum tree is starting to drop fruit which will ferment, so I will see if the usual phalanx of hornets turns up and establishes the usual "no--go" area. I like the geckos, with whom I share the house and the ultra-violet mozzy trap in the bathroom lures in the moths through the open window to keep them fed, and moths are not in short supply. I have not used the mosquito net more than twice this year, being much more worried about the Scolopendra. Every year is different, and this year is just the same.
I have to say I have not seen one ladybird, no butterflies and few bees in my garden this year. We have planted shrubs, flowers and trees to try to attract them so do so hope next year if we don’t get such cold and wet weather, they start to reappear.
i have lived in the same place, in the countryside for over 30 years. This year i have been struck by the silence when i enter my garden, it is completely different to any other year. Each year i have noticed that the insect population varies, some years bees are in the ascendent sometimes butterflies are, other insects vary in number too, a sort of ever changing tapestry of creatures. The garden itself has done well with all the rain we've had. Some plants are a third bigger than usual. but they have been slow to flower, a glimpse of sunshine has set them flowering and then more dull weather has allowed them to stay in flower for longer. However the dull and cold has not encouraged insects, so the insect life has got out of synch with flowering. The Buddleja's are now coming into flower (this is earlier than usual) and will be interested to see if the butterflies turn up to feed or not.
@@dawgy6674 and your evidence is? what do you mean look up, look up at what?you are yet another chem trail conspiracy nutter, i am an environmental scientist, and am sick of people such as yourselves putting there uniformed nonesense out on the internet, if i could be bothered explaining to you what is actually happening to the weather and climate i would but i know i would be wasting my time. go get an education, learn about your planet and give up being a beer chugging 'keyboard warrior' is my advice to you.
Yes you’re right about the timing of the plant development being out of sync this year. I had a good lot of garlic mustard but it was a bit early and the fewer numbers of Orange Tip butterflies a bit late, resulting in quite a few tiny caterpillars on tough old seed pods.
It's now the end of July. I have a climbing white rose in the front garden and a variety of insect friendly flowers, including a huge Buddleia in the back garden. I haven't seen one variety of Bumblebee all year, I haven't seen any butterflies other than a small group of whites in the last week. The swift population just around my area this year is approximately 60% down on last year (I record their migrations every year) and I haven't seen any dragonflies, any mayflies, any wasps or honey bees. My white rose in the front garden has hardly flowered at all compared to previous years. We have a decent communal paddock at the back of the property, which is in permanent set aside for flora and fauna. Fingers crossed for the next 12 weeks or so.
I'm in NZ, I really hope it is a boom vs bust cycle. My garden is normally a haven for wildlife, but this past summer I only counted four honeybees. Normally it's swarming with them. So frightening. I did have lots of bumblebees and butterflies though, but the lack of honeybees felt incredibly sad and scary.
I've noticed this myself, usually have millions of bees in my huge cherry tree in May, hardly any this year, I just cleaned out a long border full of English Ivy, didnt come across any crawlies just a few woodlice, no spiders either. There aren't even any black and greenfly on the roses
In Australia swallows were once common in town drove up the country talking to my wife on mobile phone (hands free) the signal dropped out then there were swallows in large numbers on the farm fence wires they only eat flying insects?? there is a conection and a cover up!
The insects have all moved to Missouri. I wore long sleeves, long pants, and a bug net to avoid bee stings, wasp stings, mosquitos, ticks, and chiggers while picking flying insects and certain caterpillars off my vegetable garden this morning. The chickens love those bugs and there are plenty more to go around. Is there an international market for Missouri bugs? I will ship anywhere it's legal. 😉 Reality Check: My area is extremely rural and without agricultural chemicals. The water comes up from deep springs so the water is likely over 10,000 years old and chemical free. We aren't very near industrial areas, airports, or cities. But, we have noticed the lack of insects on our windshield when traveling on freeways. The quantity of butterflies and other pollinators is much lower than 20 years ago. Most of our crops don't need pollinators: herbs, greens, alliums, garlic, sugar snap peas, root vegetables, and broccoli, and cauliflower. We hand pollinate squash, zucchini, and melons. The tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers seem to do ok but with lower yields. Because of the heat we grow a lot more food indoors, year-round.
Thanks for your video, I had a gazillion peacock caterpillars on my purposely saved stinging nettles this last weekend, so there is a little hope over here in mid Wales 🐛🐛🐛🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋
As a 64 year old, I concur with the "I've been saying this for years..." litany. As a driver and former motorcyclist, like others I remember having visors and windscreens literally splattered with bugs - you'd have to stop on the motorway to be able to see. Garages all had buckets of water and sponges on the forecourt, remember? We live in Portishead, outside Bristol, and have a fairly big nature reserve near us with acres of natural wildflower meadows. If you walk there in the evening, across probably a square kilometre of pasture there is not a single bug in the sky, it is completely empty month after month. When the farmers cut the wheat crops we used to have so many insects in the grandparents porch in rural Nottinghamshire that you could barely see across the room. The windows would be black from edge to edge. 40 years on, we see nothing when the same thing happens here. Someone has screwed up really badly. Bees are the 'poster boys' that get the attention but look at the cow parsley and other flowers that used to be covered in colourful beetles etc. and there is literally not a single living thing. My concern is that population dynamics rely on reproductive adults to produce offspring (trust me, I'm a biologist!). One or two years of this and there will be none - if we're not there already. I have asked people travelling around the UK and Europe what they're seeing and even in remote islands it seems to be the same story. Our political and media systems seem to be populated by half-wits who have done a Media Studies course, so don't hold out any hope that they are even aware of it, or give a toss. Hugs. JM. If we think this just makes our picnics easier I really fear we will feel serious effect soon enough.
Silent Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. My farm has an abundance of Milk Weed, but the Monarchs disappeared about ten years ago. I haven't seen any butterflies in about that long. Reporting from the heart of industrial agriculture, USA.
Thanks for your video Dave. Informative as always. I share your concern re the lack of insects in my wildlife garden. I was commenting recently to my wife re the lack of butterflies in particular. I do have a bumblebee nest under my shed so that’s good. Hopefully things will pick up as the year progresses.
Your positivity about fluctuations is to be applauded (and you, like most of us, garden for wildlife) but as you say the hard data says otherwise. The situation is dire. I’m about to visit Dr Frans Vera’s nature reserve tomorrow, Oostvaardersplassen, in the Netherlands. Big problems require big solutions. 🐂 Changing farming practices (Knepp) and educating is more effective than voting, keep writing and educating. 📚
I'm 70 yrs old and have done more than my fair share of travelling and the general decline in insect popularions is quite noticable. When I was a kid our family used to go on holiday to Italy and Spain (Majorca & Ibiza), I remember seeing loads of big moths and even a 'Deaths Head Hawkmoth' + loads of wall gekos and bats. I am in Spain at the moment, at night the lights are almost totally devold of any inscets, you do see the odd geko or bat but they are few & far between. The last hawk moths I saw were in Angola a few months ago and we used have them in our garden as well as hundreds of wasps feeding on the ripining pears - not my favourite inscets. Where I grew up in the Thames Valley just across the wesren border of Greater London as a kid in 60s the skies were 'black' with swifts and house martins especially, last year I visited the old home town and hardly saw any. From my travels this seems to be an international trend, where have all the bugs gone ?
I grow mother wort and it’s so attractive to bees every year, this year I have not seen one bee on the plants I have. The whole point of me growing them is that it brings bees in to the garden 😟
Thanks, Dave for your informed, calm views... We can ALL make a difference... Buying organic is a great idea, as is voting for govts who prioritize a healthy natural 🌎 and who ACT to protect it.
You mention that you're surrounded by pastures, are there any animals in those pastutres? More and more cattle are permenantly housed now, which I disagree with for cattle attract insects, but the greens would like to see the cattle gone!
This has been a very poor summer in the garden here in Denmark 🙈😔 and I have been looking forward to this time of year the whole winter 😭. Well we still got July and August to hope for a buzzing garden 🤗🥰
I live in Denmark and on the property of my workplace we have done a rewildling project. It is now teaming with butterflies (at least certain species), bees, hoverflies, beetles… Many birds are thriving too. Just to say that getting together and doing something can actually help. The public Danish broadcasting company made a series about rewildling a few years ago, and it has completely changed the discourse about rewildling. Everyone’s doing it now. It sparks hope💚
I have the sane. In November I am longing for February/march. This year feb and march were awful, as was April, and may. Barely any bees around this year.
They're all in my yard. Cicadas, gnats, grasshoppers, bees of all kinds, wasps, worms, centipede, everything. In my suburban yard where they're not supposed to be able to thrive.
As a freight train driver for the last 20 years I can give another insight into the loss of insects. 20 years ago my windscreen would be covered and it would be difficult to see out. Nowadays not so much. I also will vote Green, we need to send a message to all politicians about what is important to us and also push for proportional representation.
Green is a hidden agenda, to replace natural with artificial for benefit of pockets, profit, forced buying. Replace forest with solar panels, insert windmills into sea, make all food artificial, genetically modified, poisoned with chemicals, pesticides. All politicians are in this, sold to corporations for money. Planet suffocating under plastic, chemicals, single use clothes, solar panels, radioactive waste, batteries. Someone blew up north stream. Any '' green'' activist complain about this, weapons, wars, artificial intelligence? No, they blame the cow.
Sadly, Green politicians seem congenitally incapable of sticking to actual green issues. They spend all their time on identity politics and other fluff.
Alarming. Upsetting. In my area, North Merseyside, by the coast, the numbers if swifts and housemartins has collapsed relentlessly over 20 years: the skies used to be full of them in the evening in the nineties and early noughties, My garden is medium sized, maybe 18 by 50 metres, but it is full of flowering plants and trees. In the past, Insects were all around it. Now, I don't use insecticide, which makes weeding tiresome. and I tend to the quality of the soil, using good compost, but I can no longer find earthworms however deep I dig. The residue of local hedghogs (a fraction of its former size) must rely on slugs and snails I think. I plant only pollinator plants, in drifts, but they are no longer attractive to bees and I am lucky to see them visited by solitary bees- I am doubting that these plants contain any pollen and wonder if a fraud has been visited upon me by these major nurseries! I saw just one hoverfly last week. One hoverfly ! Mosquitos have gone entirely, where they used to be a regular summer pest. Bumble Bees are around, however, because I allow my high privets to blossom and I can hear on high the hum of bees when the rains stop: when the blossom goes, they go. I have seen one Red Admiral this year, two Cabbage Whites. I am living in an insect desert and I blame prairie farming and agricultural insecticides and farming practices around my town. What have our farmers done? I think I am right to panic, to be honest, but I will continue with my lonely efforts.
Overpopulation has put pressure on farmers to squeeze more food out of our disappearing countryside, all those years of pesticide use is killing nature and causing damage to human health
In April my lavender was covered in bees but rarely see one now. Every year I grow sunflowers and by now they are covered in bees. This year I've seen two, also the white cabbage butterfly hasn't made an appearance which seems odd.
I've noticed a reduction in number and diversity of insects over the years. Butterflies and moths in particular. Although I guess I wouldn't notice a lot of the smaller ones anyway. I have lived mainly in London, but recently moved to rural Wales. Even here I see much fewer than I expected. So far I've seen two meadow brown butterflies. The clincher for me, that the reduction is real, is that the car has a clean bonnet and windscreen after a long drive now, compared to the insect carnage of the past.
Thirty years ago if I rode a motorcycle on a motorway,in summer,I'd get home,take my helmet off and wonder how I managed to see at all through all the dead bugs on the visor.Nowadays I'll make a similar journey by bike in summer and only get 2 or 3 dead insects on my visor.Something is dramatically different today from 3 decades ago.
Same thing , with car windscreen
those were the days prior to mobile phones. Yes pesticide use has increased but so too has the small wavelength radio waves for mobiles and WiFi
@@dast6915 What? There is no solid evidence to say that mobile phone use harms humans (though I wouldn't discount some connection totally, some studies find loose correlations between poor health and heavy mobile phone use), now you are trying to connect it to harming wildlife? I don't wish to sound rude, but nor do I like letting such things passed unchallenged - to me the idea sounds like nonsense. I'm no scientist but I regularly read a science magazine (New Scientist) as well as watching documentaries on the BBC (which is a reputable broadcaster). Besides which the decline began several decades ago, it is nothing to do with mobiles etc. Things were better than 30 years ago and indeed the decline may be accelerating, but that's due to a further increase in pesticide use and habitat loss.
@@danyoutube7491the words ‘ The BBC is reputable broadcaster’ kill your credibility before your unfounded speculations do.
Maybe it was all the helmet visors and windscreens wot done it.
My garden is silent, it's deafening!!!!! It's a time of excitement when I hear a bee. Bloody emf!!
Yes, 5G is killing things!
Same here, bees have been dying now for a number of years going back to 2009 to my knowledge, I would see many dead bees and over the course of 7 years many of my high yielding nectar plats grew silent, less and less bees. My large garden then was open and full of vegetation, plant, shrubs and trees, my garden was a heaven for nature. So too now at another property many miles away, still the bees die?
Me too.
Depopulation.
We have lots of birds, bees, frogs and even hedgehogs etc, but our (jungle)garden is not like the rest near us, you know the type, formal, lawn cut to 10 mm, small shrubs about 10 inch tall, slug pellet users, killing sprays, then people wonder why there is no wildlife around, it's the Human who thinks a dolls house garden looks pretty !
Gaz UK.
I've lost all my bee hives. All warre hives with no treatment. My oldest was 8 years and very strong. Obviously, all the queens failed to reproduced and as I do minimal interference, nature took its course. Zero signs of varroa or any other diseases. Now I know honey bees aren't in short supply but the fact that all the hives got wiped out makes you wonder what's out there affecting the ecosystem.
Probably aluminium which is being sprayed into our clouds to deflect the sun from the earth
Love the Warre method. Sorry for your loss.
Pesticides used nearby?
Use shungite crystals in hives to protect from emf
@@danielmiller1781 conspiracy theory?
Flat earth orchemtrails?
Very worrying. The lime trees are in full flower and normally it's humming with bees, but the silence is deafening
KHALOSPIRIT. YES THE LIME TREES ARE STILL GIVING OFF A PUNGENT SCENT, SIMILAR TOO A FEMALES EXPENSIVE PERFUME, BUT STILL NO BEES OR ANY INSECTS AROUND THEM. IT'S USUALLY VERY BUSY AROUND THESE TREES AT THIS TIME OF YEAR. I'M VERY CONCERNED BY IT.😢
you've fail3d to mention chemTRAILS or don't you believe that's a massive factor in all this.
Because it's bull @@Peter-cz8hx
@@Peter-cz8hx - I think the unseasonably cold weather earlier in the year has a lot to do with it. We had some heavy frosts in April, which may have wiped out many of the young insects.
Lime trees here in the Trossachs NP are humming with bees.
Heavy use of synthetic pesticides, which started in the UK in the 1940s 4:05
my guess is it's that, too - nicotinides and others. (Even though nicotine is arguably natural).
@MarkJones-gt2qd I'm not sure where you think I have implied or stated that it would be...?
no pesticides in my garden. I think it's wifi and mobile phone masts
@@angelabrooke5059chemtrails and 4g 5g frequencies
I think there are multiple reasons. Sky trail chemicals, pesticides and the new radio towers just put up, they all have the same effect on the insects.
The silent spring is coming true. A truly frightening book. Rachel Carson in the early sixties warned us all but we paid no heed and now we are reaping the consequences.
The US Govermment tried to silence her and generally made her life difficult. They hated the fact that she was telling the truth about pesticides. Sadly, more than half a century later, her prophecies have proved to be correct, yet those in power still advocate the use of more pesticides, along with GM crops.
The End of Nature - Book by Bill McKibben is even more frightening
Dave, I admire your optimism, at the moment the absence of many familiar garden visitors is depressing.
Our garden is designed to promote insects and bees, they are now rare.
We used to shut the bathroom window whilst teeth brushing at night to prevent moths and flies visiting. None this year, no bats, no fly splattered windscreens, no house Martins or swallows. We are on course to make our world uninhabitable, we are a plague.
The five white tailed bees I’ve seen are walking home without wings!
We’re not a plague, but that’s just what your controllers want you to believe.
You’re a child of God whether you know it or not! ❤🙏
Move to east anglia, you will be swamped with every bug and insect
We are a plague? You know where the door is.
@@bartholomew941I agree , accept "being a child of God" .
If the commenter is a believer in Jesus Christ , then yes .
If not , then no .
We humans are all Gods creation , but not His children unless born again from above .
Have a Grace filled day brother 😊
🏴♥️🇮🇱✝️
I haven't seen a Swallow or House Martin for years. And not many insects to be seen.
It's geoengineering chemicals wiping them out.
Agreed
@@warrenjackson7326
Absolutely correct , they are destroying the world, and it frightens me for the next generation,leave the bloody skies alone.
Think logically. The people that you think are spraying chemicals into the atmosphere breath the same air as you.
Yep, plus pesticides…
Why would a government spray the air when they themselves breath the same air? Think critically about this.
My garden is full of lavender and other flowers that would usually be covered in bees... I've been starting to worry. Not even seen a wasp yet
If we aren't vigilant with discouragement, we have an annual paper wasp nest above our back door. It's apparently prime wasp real estate. This year, there are only a few residents.
Yes a bad year for wasps and bees. Even after the mild and wet winter I saw a fair number of queen bees and wasps and the overwintering butterflies at the end of march. But then after weeks of wet weather they mostly disappeared. No wasp, tortoiseshell or peacock nests seen and the various bumblebees are a bit sparse.
Me neither in central Scotland
Lots in our garden
my lavender has been covered south uk, which is nice to see. The wasps arent what they used to be.
As a professional gardener my experience away from human induced reduction I have always found that temperature and rain have a huge impact on insect numbers as the season progresses especially dependant on a cold or hot spring. That’s just my visual experience being up close on a daily basis. On the whole there’s definitely a huge reduction in the past decade
Thank you so much, Professor Goulson, for your research, your books, your videos and for raising awareness that these magnificent creatures are in need of our help!
You are very welcome
I've been thinking this 😮 even a lack of my nemesis cabbage white butterfly 😮 started to notice how hungry the birds are, eating anything I've not covered in my veg beds😮 I'm definitely going to make some bug motels 🧑🌾🌱 I live in the countryside and the difference this year is quite shocking 🐝🦋🦗🪲
@@davegoulson6831i think you should consider Dr Sheldrakes Morphic Resonance theory?
Living on the N W Coast of Scotland we would be getting eaten alive by now. But after the male midge hatched we got the female hatch which lasted about a week before weather that isn’t dissimilar to our winters arrived, no midges now, and although some folk may welcome this they’re a valuable source of food for many birds and insects.
@@davegoulson6831 Not very politically astute, I agree about the seriousness but don't automatically vote Green, it's a deeply communistic party. Do what you can in your life, voting isn't enough, in truth it isn't anything.
I’m in the lucky circumstance to have both a house with a small garden in the Netherlands and one with a larger plot in Abruzzo, Italy. The differences in wildlife couldn’t be more gigantic, I think. In my Dutch garden there’s a butterfly every now and then, some bumblebees and bees (mostly honeybees) and the dayly tits and blackbirds. Sometimes I see a hedgehog walking outside my garden doors in the evening. On my Italian plot there are hundreds of butterflies on a daily basis, from February into November, scores of bumblebees, solitary bees, paperwasps and parasitic wasps, beetles small and large. These critters bring in loads of birds like the ones you’ve mentioned and then some.
I think every attentive person that has lived with a garden for the last few decades should have been able to have noticed the decline in the number of insects and birds. I know I have, and it’s probably one of the main reasons for me to have bought the house in Italy. In rural Italy there’s still predominantly small scale farming with a large variety of crops. In between the fields there are many spaces not used by humans; overgrown ruins, small and larger woods, little river valleys, rocky outcrops. Most road verges are mown only once or twice a year and boast tens of different species of wild flower per square metre.
What I see in Italy at least gives me a small amount of hope that the tide can still be turned. I am afraid, in the other hand, that society will keep on snowballing towards further destruction of nature (and with that, itself).
Dutch is beautifull country, but also very industrial. Ive never seen such industrial spaces as in Rotterdam region. You car ride and ride and see only chemical factories, siloses, warehouses, ports. I get that its main port for mainland Europe, but still look devastating. You have plenty of nature and green spaces in between cities and in the cities, but overall you dont have that much of it. I think we humans think about developed countries in a wrong way. We look at how good we use and abuse nature and call that GDP growth, when in fact its nature destruction. I am not pointing fingers at Holland, becouse the problem is global. Thanks for sharing your story.
Beautifully put friend. I too have a small farm in Warwickshire, England and now a small farm in Abruzzo. It is my greatest pain that Britain came out of the EU because now I cannot stay long in Italy. Nevertheless, I love it there. This year in Warwickshire has been the worst decline in insect population - the lime trees were empty, the blackberries I could count the bees on one hand every day. Bumblebees are just not evident in any numbers at all. It is a disaster. But around us is pasture without wildflowers or annual grasses. Our farms rely completely on chemicals. Our roadsides are continuously cut down to the bare earth. I am very sad. 😔
In Oxfordshire we have loads of birds, pigeons everywhere, robins,blue tits, black birds,fly's everywhere, mosquitos with a funny tail ,rats spider everywhere too
It’s always so exciting to hear somebody who’s doing well, you are such a contributor, we all applaud you for your good Fortune, gosh thanks, I’m not sure how others feel but I for applause you for talking about how great things are for you, congratulations
/sarcasm/
What I find most worrying is the lack of interest in it, similar to the destruction of insect life in our rivers. So sad.
People are having enough trouble paying bills and putting food on the table , the interest is mostly found in supported youth unless they're paying their way . People , especially those from other countries look on gardens as an unnecessary burden
@@stephenrice4554 Our Countryside and Rivers are not gardens. These are under government mandates to be looked after and protected and currently they are not.
When it's gone it's gone!. Makes me so sad, but very few people seem to care.
That 1 to 2 percent annual descrease was terrifying news. But needed. This should be top news globally really! Thank you from Norway.
The news is justva propaganda machine and never expose the massive geoengineering causing much of the destruction.
This is so depressing. How I wish I could go back a hundred years just to walk around for a while and look and listen to the world. I remember even 15 - 20 years ago how many more butterflies, bees, and birds there seemed to be. Don't even remember when I last saw a wasp.
Wasps got wiped out years ago
I do think there are yearly variations. I hadn’t seen wasps much until a few years ago, but we have had several nests near us. Last year I could count 5 nests. Same with the bees. I agree this year is quiet, but a couple of years ago I knew of several swarms near me. But the house martins and swallows are doing well here. I even spot swifts as well. The house martins are building new nests on the house even. So there are signs and good news. A beautiful butterfly has just landed near me as I type.
Cotswolds
Depends what plants you have in your garden. Certain flowers attract hover fly's which are wasps favourite prey and I see lots in my garden hunting. Try planting a larger variety of plants
@@Realclimatescience222 There already is a large variety, still don't see near a fraction of what there was years ago.
I have noticed this for a few years. We used to have moths and mosquitos, wasps and bees in our garden, with our pet cat launching herself at moths against the patio door. This summer we can sit in the living room with the patio doors wide open, lights on, and no insects. We can sit in the garden on the lawn of an evening and not be bitten by midges. It's startling.
I have been noticing for years.10 years ago I drove Cornwall to Norfolk and no,insects on windscreen.In the 80’s my windscreen was covered every day in summer.So yes I am panicked.
It’s very cold, hot water bottle weather.I grow veg and it’s a disaster.Not one tomato in my conservatory yet.The basil all died from cold.I live in a rural area near the sea.Everyday (almost) I see the sky covered in trails , the next day it’s cold and cloudy.Thats the climate change along with magnetic field being in collapse so you get so,are forcing.
Green Party is not green.I discovered my electric car is very bad even.What a con.
Spot on .😮
The fly population doesn't seem to be affected much though.
It could be due to the better streamlining of modern cars. Old cars were very boxy and insects would hit rather than be diverted over by the cars aerodynamics
@@Realclimatescience222I instantly thought that was a really good point, but just remembered that in 2012 i bought a brand new Ford Focus. I put one of those sponges with a scouring pad in my boot, as I had to use it regularly (often daily) to clear the dead insects from my windscreen. The sponge is still there, but I'd forgotten all about it, and can't remember the last time I had to use it, 5 years ago maybe.
Better call it 'the Grey Party'. Have you see all the fields with solarecreens? Cities growing wide and high.
Indeed, the birds are gone too.
I've had 2 bees and 4 butterflies so far, im in Yorkshire ..for sure we can look at the weather patterns for clues , however i truly believe there are other issues at play...by all means.call me a conspiracy theorist , however i'm feeling uneasy about many things in this crazy world...
They are no longer called conspiracy theories, they are now referred to as spoiler alerts
@@StopAgenda21 Yes, theory turns into fact very rapidly!
I'm now filming my bit of sky.
I was thinking just this morning how I could count the number of butterflies I've seen in my garden so far this year on just my fingers 😞
I have got around 8 buddleia bushes in my garden that are usually all covered in a variety of butterflies by late June, this year Ive seen only one or two and just a very few bees, it is very odd and sad!
I went for a walk through a small patch of local woodland yesterday. One footpath in particular is lined with honey sickle, buddleia, balsam, daisies etc.
It was noticeable that the sound of birds singing and insects buzzing was so missed!
I'm a beekeeper and the hives seem to attract bumblebees to nest close by as well as lots of other insects. There have been lots of honey bee losses due to the rain this year so I imagine it will have affected other species. They seem to be bouncing back now tho
Oh and crops
I've noticed insects decreasing, used to be loads. Maybe if they stopped spraying stuff in the air?
If you mean pesticides then yes, along with habitat loss it is a major cause.
@@danyoutube7491 chemtrail conspiracy 🐝🐝🐝🐝
@@danyoutube7491 Solar radiation management injects chemicals into the stratosphere (those big white lines that appear).
Also five gee frequencies and geo-engineering impact all insects.
six gee (is that censored) is already in the early stages. Some governments have had debates about the health affects of five, and scientists seem to be split over the issue as most tests have been on lab mice, sometimes showing health problems after long term exposure
@@MrVidification Yes, and what is odd is how people with a public presence are noticeably silent on the issue. It's bizarre to have a discussion about the environment whilst omitting the electromagnetic issue and the intense geo-engineering of our skies, blocking the sun.
So insects declining for 100 years is due to 5G? Why no fast Internet in the 1920's?
How can a man so in tune with nature not notice or mention the g£0 £ng£n££ring but insted plugs his book and have a political waffle instead? Be aware of the gatekeepers for they are many and everywhere.
I see the masts go up, and I see the trails being laid in the sky.
And then the sun is but a memory, the rain soaks and floods, and the insects disappear.
Without crops, and with sunshine, where do we go from here?
Stratospheric aerosol injection, look up what is being sprayed including aluminum nano particulates which are affecting bees.
Evidence for this, please.......
@@mrsp3992 took my comments down twice
@@mrsp3992corrupt YT keeping taking my comments down.
@@mrsp3992 Can you find your backside with both hands?...
@@warrenjackson7326me too
There's extremely heavy chemtrailing going on in Cornwall this past year, any blue skies are promptly swallowed by the countless jets spraying. They were even spraying late last night
Unfortunately it's worldwide and not just weather modification the chemtrails are also used to kill off the natural environment. Surprised the Prof doesn't mention them but then he either does or views such comments as this as conspiracy theory. Yes we're being conspired against by the financiers who hold the strings of our governments.
Same south east kent
What??@@warrenjackson7326
Yes Jake , the sky has some very peculiar cloud structures and weird formations I am ancient now but I have studied the skies quite a bit , as a retired pilot I can see the sky is often very abnormal , The BBC are saying that there is no Geo engineering happening but the atmosphere has been messed around with for 50+ years . A small amount of research soon uncovers their actions .
Yeah I’ve noticed that too Jake. I live in Penzance
I’ve been screaming about this for last 2 years 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬 it’s not the weather it’s the atmospheric injecting ,chem spraying,wake up
I feel your pain!! 🤦🏽♂️
5g signals
blocking the sun has been detrimental to all life, and yet they persist
Bees in my garden have been decreasing year on year for at least five years, lavender for example now devoid of bees on warm days where in the past was absolutely alive, says it all for me.
Last year my bee friendly bushy plant was humming with bees.
Today it's warm, at noon I found exactly 1 bee there.
Visited the unique island of Sark last year. It has no vehicles, no intensive farming methods, very little phone network. My overwhelming memory was the intense buzz of insects amongst all the trees and bushes.
Geoengineered weather and “fivegee”. Four has been proved to affect fauna and flora so us too, five is beyond comprehension. Look forward to reading your book. Thank you 💕🌿
Absolutely, both are having an impact on navigation and health. All interconnected. Soil is being impacted by heavy metals.
The only thing you said there which is true is that you look forward to reading his book.
@@danyoutube7491wake up !!
@@meesh.Ggo back to your toy collection
@@Karincl7 Try another tin foil hat. Rgr
As a Gardener I've definitely noticed the decline for years, especially this year. On all sorts of plants and flowers that are usually covered. And some plants are out of sync, and flowering early. Less insects less bird variety hardly ever see a bat. It's sad.
I've noticed decreasing insect activity over the past 4 years in SC, USA but this is the first I've noticed the plants out of sync during the Summer. Some grasses have begun going to seed months early and one fall blooming bushy Aster began flowering about a month ago, well before our recent high temps. It's very unsettling.
You have highlighted something that has been of major concern to me for a long time!
There has been no 'boom and bust' in the insect population for a couple of decades or more. As far as I can see, it is all just bust!!!
I think that, to a large extent, modern agricultural policies and practises have DECIMATED the insect life!
If we have broken a link in the natural food chain, then everything is going to collapse 😮
I am just dumbfounded that we are freaking out over CO2 and completely blind to the fact that we have virtually destroyed this vital link in the natural chain. This is indeed the biggest crisis that we are facing right now, but unfortunately nothing is getting done about it. Nothing!
As many people have commented, I remember in the 80s when a single day's drive in Summer would result in my car being plastered in bugs... but today, a whole month of driving wouldn't see a fraction of that amount!
It is so evident - as obvious as the nose on your face... but nothing is being done about it. And I think that the reason nothing is being done about simply boils down to the fact that the population has exploded and the primary need to feed that population has trumped every other concern.
Yes, 100%. The agricultural chemicals, weedkillers, GM plants, destruction of habitat...it's disgusting.
I'm a trout fisher, fishing in streams. I don't see enough insects, large enough to be trout food, and I'm not bothered enough by mosquitos as I should be!
Yip. Personally I've had a good(ISH) year for butterflies and bees, but that's because of the places I've gone. Our little garden, despite being small, has been doing ok for bees ( been hotels and native flowers do work-- as does letting grass grow). , but long term trends are nothing short of disastrous. Do what you can people !
we have a shed that fell down years ago but kept as its a mountain of honeysuckle now in full bloom, no bees no butterflies this year, i think its the 5G in the area killing them
My garden is designed around insects, especially pollinators. My numbers are well down and my huge colony of solitary bees emerged healthy but then just vanished (not found any dead ones under their boxes).
I do the same here in my garden and any bees I am seeing are tiny. I did find a Red Admiral caterpillar on my nettle patch today which cheered me up as I haven't seen any butterflies for weeks. Hopefully that will improve as the caterpillars pupate and emerge. Fingers crossed
Same here
Twenty years ago I was flying my paramotor around 1500foot above rural Scotland, when I became aware of a very sudden chemical smell, which momentarily confused me. I looked around, and saw a tractor spraying a field about a mile upwind; a thermal had lifted the spray chemical up into the air. This eventually will have settled back again on the ground, be that ground designated organic or otherwise - what goes up must come down. Over 30,000 tonnes of one chemical alone (glyphosate) is routinely sprayed on our green and pleasant land, and during the time this has become the norm, so has the increase in incidents of allergies and food intolerances among the population. It seems that for all our cleverness, we overlook the ‘tragedy of the commons’, and place personal enrichment and tolerance of harmful practices to all life above maintaining a healthy environment for all life forms.
5 g is impacting insects world wide
Yes, you are correct. Insects are very sensitive to electromagnetic fields.
Best put on your tinfoil hat
@@yvonnestrid As I'm sure you don't know, 5G is just a communications protocol. It uses exactly the same frequency bands as earlier protocols - in fact 3G is at end of life to make room for it. And a key aspect of 5G is lower power and better targeting.
The schumann resonance of the earth has been artificially raised from 7.83 hz to over a 100 hz on selected areas affecting the health of every living thing on the planet its affecting heart arrhythmias dna building imunne responce through the electrical functions of the body all deliberate and the perpetraters protected.
@@yangtse55 BS, 2 huge 3 phase power supply boxes next to each mast, all had to have upgraded power supplies.
Thank you Dave, for your, as ever, clear, concise and accurate information.
I'm glad you raised this issue, it's been 'bugging' me.
When i was a kid every summer there were literally thousands of coloured butterflies and the obligatory cabbage whites - i have seen about 5 coloured butterflies in my garden this year
Long time gardener and amateur entomologist, and there IS something seriously going on with the insect population. I’ve been noticing a steady decline over the last decade or so, and these last two years, it’s fallen off the cliff. No bees of any kind, no butterflies, no hoverflies, etc. I’ve had to resort to hand pollinating everything. I live in NY, by the way. Everyone I talk to says the same thing.
Chem Trails pal!
and fukushlma
Indeed. The c-trails are everywhere, daily. Nano particles of aluminium, barium, strontium among other things. It's not a hidden technology, there's plenty of info about it. Look up "stratospheric injection" and geo engineering. This chap needs new glaif he's not seeing what goes on in the Sussex skies DAILY.
Ooos.. new Glasses!🤓
And 5g towers
I have also noticed this . No butterfly’s home or allotment, got lots bee loving flowers but only a couple of bees at a time. This is unusual. I am concerned .🐝
I live in a new estate, people don't have flowers in their gardens so start planting and they'll come. Too many people are going for plastic lawns around my way.
You are delusional. I have acres and acres of flowers but still no insects. Its pesticides.
Don’t plant GMO plants. They put the insects off from eating them or laying their eggs on them because of their altered genetics.
@@saskwatch123 are they GMO? Or naturally occurring plants?
@@robertchapman6795 Natural.....
Nope plenty plants and feeders are next
I have turned my sisters lawn into a flower meadow, filled the borders with herbacious perennials, and stocked her pond with plants and sticklebacks! I will never use chemicals and have started a compost heap. I will just have to wait for the wee beasties to turn up!
Well, I am not sure. If you see your lavender every year full of bees, also bumble bees, and this year zero, it is strange. I hope you are right and that we will see some life coming back in the next weeks. To me, being older, this is not normal and it is concerning. I have not seen this before in my life, this total lack of insects.
My garden is full of flowers and I've not seen a single bee either, so weird and worrying.
I agree. My garden in SE Cornwall is full of vegetables and as many insect friendly plants as I can fit in. Lavender hedge is usually humming with Bees but this year nothing!! I took my kids to the Eden Project when they were young and one particular info display walked us through a world without insects. Let's just say, it's best to avoid that but I am very worried. No butterflies to speak of either. Hope its just a blip. 😢
I live in South Korea, and I also worry about climate change because I am a novice beekeeper.
I have no big land, so I cannot take something big action. For now, I'm kind of experimenting with what to plant if I have bigger land later on.
The rainy season starts in my country now. Despite the bad weather, many hoverflies, carpenter bees (Xylocopa appendicula), and honey bees (Apis cerana, Apis mellifera) visit my tiny garden. English lavenders, Wild bergamots, Peppermints, and Apple mints grow in my garden. They seem to love these plants very much.
I am also observing the domestic plants around me. Despite the bad news that bees are dying, bees and other insects are still in place. Because of all these little things it still looks like something can be done.
I hope I can help at least a little to improve the surrounding vegetation for bees (especially. 🙂) and other insects.
Blessings....I hope your bees thrive and make lovely honey!!
@@DeannaClark-oo9ut Thanks. 🙂
I was telling my kids about the sound of summer when i was a child ....a loud hypnotic hum from so many insects ..not anymore . Northwest uk
I live in Paisley in Scotland, 100m or so from the Glennifer Braes which is full of various different wildflowers, heathers, wooded areas, etc. I loved walking over the braes years ago, but hated the hassle from all the wasps/ bees, but for the last 3yrs when i go for a walk up there, i'm lucky if i see a half dozen in a 5-6hr space.
I've read in articles about the subject that this 'thing' is to blame, someone else says it's this other 'thing'. I don't know what exactly is the cause of this, but suspect all the suspected causes are playing a part, but some or one more than others.
Whatever is to blame, if nothing is done to get things going back in the right direction, we won't have to worry about the Government shutting down farms for climate change reasons, there will be no pollinators for certain crops, (i had no idea just how many different crops they pollinated) the farms will go out of business, unless they can diversify their business model. Even worse, we will have no crops or way less crops to harvest.
I pray that Mother Nature will naturally repair this if left to it's own devices, but i feel that is more wishful thinking than anything.
I also live in East Sussex, and it's early July. I have not seen one butterfly or housemartin and very few bees. It is true what the professor said insect numbers are drastically low. Of course, other people will say there are plenty of insects where they live, but that doesn't make up for the overall decline. Insects are part of a food chain. Other creatures depend on them for food. We humans depend on insects for pollination of food crops. When farmers spray pesticides on their crops to keep insect pests off their crops, they inadvertently kill pollinators. Albert Einstein said, " When the bees go, we go."
😢my allotment in Peacehaven is covered in Lavender bushes and usually loads of bumble and other bees. Not one have I seen so far or on walks in the local countryside. I would usually applaud the absent of the Cabbage White but I am finding it all pretty eerie .
Thankyou for this. I sometimes feel a bit lonely in my small eco friendly practices, but I love the buzz of life in the garden and the ‘life factory’ of my composting corner!
there are more people doing this. dont feel lonely. I do not use chemicals, lots of wild plants, composting etc. Our trail camera shows foxes, hedgehogs and recently a badger. And we are on the outskirts of a town, not the countryside
I was thinking this only yesterday. My lavender is in full bloom and usually covered with bees and endless humming. It's very quiet out there.
I noticed no mention of the cloud spraying going on every day maybe the greens might look into that.
Agreef
Probably because there's no evidence that it's actually happening.
@@mrsp3992 , look up .gov.UK website & go to geoengineering, what they describe it to look like is exactly what is happening & google bees & aluminum, lots & lots of info.
Or because they are part of the uniparty that are following the goals of agenda 2030
@@mrsp3992 The Met Office has admitted they are doing it.
Thanks Prof Dave. For all your energy in highlighting this tremendously important issue
Here is a man who calmly puts it the way it is. Thank you.
A friend and I were out for a walk yesterday and we were saying how we had not seen any butterflies this year. My garden is usually full of butterflies due to the planting I do. So far it hasn’t been a good summer. I’m in the north of England. I also remember the days when the front of your car would be covered in dead insects at times!😏
Yep I have noticed a massive absence of insect life this year all my pollinator friendly plants are devoid of life day and night. In my 62yrs I have noticed an incredible decline in all our wild life and its due in the main to our activities, intensive farming, traffic, pollutants and continual loss of habitat. This needs reversing ASAP. The so called Climate Crisis should take a back door and lets concentrate on becoming sustainable. I share you observations. I live in rural South Devon and even here in the 12 yrs that I have lived here I have noticed sharp declines across the board. I am lucky that I have over an acre of garden and I am re-wilding I hope to see some sort of improvement soon. Unfortunately, I thing greed and stupidity will win the day until its too late.
I'm north devon/cornwall border, have you felt that this year it's partly due to the lack of sunshine? Here it's continual grey layer cloud with trails above, you often can see the sun is trying to come out but blocked by a white haze where all the trails have spread and joined to make a hazy white sky rather than a blue one, as we are at the coast we see this awful thick dark grey layer at the horizon over the sea and some days the sun will glimse out just at the very very end of the day as it falls below that grey layer - I can count the full sun days - with blue sky and no haze or trails - we've had this year on one hand
I too have noticed the lack of bees and insects this year. As I walk through the nature reserve I see very few of anything a couple of brown butterflies it is worrying.
Really interesting, I stopped using any chemicals in my garden several years ago, and I hope whilst tidy it can still attract wild life with a wide range of shrubs and herbaceous perennial plants, I'm a retired arboriculturist and I took your advice before seeing this article and voted with my heart!
I keep honeybees and deliberately let them swarm into the wild to help bolster local 'wild' populations. They have sent off at least 2 swarms this year , the remaining hives (2) are still strong. also seen ladybird larvae on my roses, lots of bumble bees, swallows and a cuckoo. WALES !😊
It is very interesting to read all the comments about the potential impacts on the insect populations.
We have the widespread use of pesticides, we have electromagnetic frequencies, we have chemicals being sprayed in the air to affect the weather (FOI requests show this to be the case - poisons sprayed in many countries), weather patterns - cold and rain, reduced habitat - so we have been letting the land be more, less mowing and tidying, and climate change. There are probably other issues too we haven’t considered, such as genetically modified plants with ‘in-built’ toxins, which is less regulated now, and the consequences of which we have no idea! A bit like other GMO’s that have been used recently with haste and not enough honest scrutiny. I am concerned that the aspects of poisoning the plants and the wildlife is not being addressed, we are fobbed off by big corporations who pay off the government too and frankly it’s all about money. Then we are made to panic about our own activity contributing to the One Evil. How about the sun’s activity which impacts climate. So much we don’t know, but we’re not told that either.
I've notice a massive loss in swifts and swallows also. Swifts for a number of years but this years shallows have really dropped in the area I live.
Been a gardener for 30 years and I noticed the lack of bees earlier in the spring, but later in the summer when our lavendars were out there were quite a few bees. It has been a relatively cool year here in the Midlands and only got hot towards the end of July, this has almost certainly influenced the insect presence. The more we can create environments for insects in our gardens, the better.
Thank you Dave Goulson. Silent Earth is one of gthe most important books I've ever read. Everyone in the world should read it!
Interesting video, thank you.
I´m in Spain, an hour from the south coast, and 750 meters above sea level.
I have most of the fruit trees you can grow here, I let the flowers grow and half my "garden" is totally inaccessible so I call it a nature reserve ....
I should be surrounded by flies, on hanging sticky traps and buzzing round the room.
There should be at least one in my glass of wine, and incessant landings on my bare arms (it´s 95ºF I´ve cut the sleeves off my shirt) but not a single fly.
Earlier on in Spring there were no frog concerts, but now the cicadas are louder than my tinnitus.
Ants are employing radar to detect a biscuit crumb at one hundred meters, their tiny dual carriageways wind for scores of meters through the dust. Wasps however are unusually rare, and the plum tree is starting to drop fruit which will ferment, so I will see if the usual phalanx of hornets turns up and establishes the usual "no--go" area.
I like the geckos, with whom I share the house and the ultra-violet mozzy trap in the bathroom lures in the moths through the open window to keep them fed, and moths are not in short supply. I have not used the mosquito net more than twice this year, being much more worried about the Scolopendra.
Every year is different, and this year is just the same.
I have to say I have not seen one ladybird, no butterflies and few bees in my garden this year. We have planted shrubs, flowers and trees to try to attract them so do so hope next year if we don’t get such cold and wet weather, they start to reappear.
I have some blackberry bushes in my town. It seems like only half of all flowers became pollinated, and its nearly the middle of August.
i have lived in the same place, in the countryside for over 30 years. This year i have been struck by the silence when i enter my garden, it is completely different to any other year. Each year i have noticed that the insect population varies, some years bees are in the ascendent sometimes butterflies are, other insects vary in number too, a sort of ever changing tapestry of creatures. The garden itself has done well with all the rain we've had. Some plants are a third bigger than usual. but they have been slow to flower, a glimpse of sunshine has set them flowering and then more dull weather has allowed them to stay in flower for longer. However the dull and cold has not encouraged insects, so the insect life has got out of synch with flowering. The Buddleja's are now coming into flower (this is earlier than usual) and will be interested to see if the butterflies turn up to feed or not.
@@dawgy6674 and your evidence is? what do you mean look up, look up at what?you are yet another chem trail conspiracy nutter, i am an environmental scientist, and am sick of people such as yourselves putting there uniformed nonesense out on the internet, if i could be bothered explaining to you what is actually happening to the weather and climate i would but i know i would be wasting my time. go get an education, learn about your planet and give up being a beer chugging 'keyboard warrior' is my advice to you.
Yes you’re right about the timing of the plant development being out of sync this year. I had a good lot of garlic mustard but it was a bit early and the fewer numbers of Orange Tip butterflies a bit late, resulting in quite a few tiny caterpillars on tough old seed pods.
Could it be frequencies from phone masts?
No
@@Karincl7 thanks for those pearls of wisdom
yes new 5g frequencies very high now. Prob not helping.
Shockingly few Swallows and Swifts too.
It's now the end of July. I have a climbing white rose in the front garden and a variety of insect friendly flowers, including a huge Buddleia in the back garden. I haven't seen one variety of Bumblebee all year, I haven't seen any butterflies other than a small group of whites in the last week. The swift population just around my area this year is approximately 60% down on last year (I record their migrations every year) and I haven't seen any dragonflies, any mayflies, any wasps or honey bees. My white rose in the front garden has hardly flowered at all compared to previous years. We have a decent communal paddock at the back of the property, which is in permanent set aside for flora and fauna. Fingers crossed for the next 12 weeks or so.
Maybe all the chemicals they are spaying in the skies to block sunlight doesn’t help profress that proffesor.
I hope you wear a mask all the timr
High frequency Active Auroral Research Program
Waiting for ' the next government ' to resolve his problems !! Man up
bingo
I'm in NZ, I really hope it is a boom vs bust cycle. My garden is normally a haven for wildlife, but this past summer I only counted four honeybees. Normally it's swarming with them. So frightening. I did have lots of bumblebees and butterflies though, but the lack of honeybees felt incredibly sad and scary.
I've noticed this myself, usually have millions of bees in my huge cherry tree in May, hardly any this year, I just cleaned out a long border full of English Ivy, didnt come across any crawlies just a few woodlice, no spiders either. There aren't even any black and greenfly on the roses
50 years ago my garden was full of a variety of insects and little birds. The last 20 years the loss has been most noticeable.
In Australia swallows were once common in town drove up the country talking to my wife on mobile phone (hands free) the signal dropped out then there were swallows in large numbers on the farm fence wires they only eat flying insects?? there is a conection and a cover up!
No butterflies on our buddleia, no squished bugs on my windscreen. A few bees on the herb garden.
Walking the Cairngorm mountains this time of year would normally be bothered by midges, but not this year.
The insects have all moved to Missouri. I wore long sleeves, long pants, and a bug net to avoid bee stings, wasp stings, mosquitos, ticks, and chiggers while picking flying insects and certain caterpillars off my vegetable garden this morning. The chickens love those bugs and there are plenty more to go around. Is there an international market for Missouri bugs? I will ship anywhere it's legal. 😉
Reality Check: My area is extremely rural and without agricultural chemicals. The water comes up from deep springs so the water is likely over 10,000 years old and chemical free. We aren't very near industrial areas, airports, or cities. But, we have noticed the lack of insects on our windshield when traveling on freeways. The quantity of butterflies and other pollinators is much lower than 20 years ago. Most of our crops don't need pollinators: herbs, greens, alliums, garlic, sugar snap peas, root vegetables, and broccoli, and cauliflower. We hand pollinate squash, zucchini, and melons. The tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers seem to do ok but with lower yields. Because of the heat we grow a lot more food indoors, year-round.
This is important. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for your video, I had a gazillion peacock caterpillars on my purposely saved stinging nettles this last weekend, so there is a little hope over here in mid Wales 🐛🐛🐛🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋
With the amount of wind and rain this summer. No self-respecting bumblebee would pop its head out.
All due to the chem trails in the sky 😢
@@lauralauralaura222 if that was true we should have seen a increase when there where few planes in 2020 and 2021.
As a 64 year old, I concur with the "I've been saying this for years..." litany. As a driver and former motorcyclist, like others I remember having visors and windscreens literally splattered with bugs - you'd have to stop on the motorway to be able to see. Garages all had buckets of water and sponges on the forecourt, remember?
We live in Portishead, outside Bristol, and have a fairly big nature reserve near us with acres of natural wildflower meadows. If you walk there in the evening, across probably a square kilometre of pasture there is not a single bug in the sky, it is completely empty month after month.
When the farmers cut the wheat crops we used to have so many insects in the grandparents porch in rural Nottinghamshire that you could barely see across the room. The windows would be black from edge to edge. 40 years on, we see nothing when the same thing happens here.
Someone has screwed up really badly. Bees are the 'poster boys' that get the attention but look at the cow parsley and other flowers that used to be covered in colourful beetles etc. and there is literally not a single living thing. My concern is that population dynamics rely on reproductive adults to produce offspring (trust me, I'm a biologist!). One or two years of this and there will be none - if we're not there already. I have asked people travelling around the UK and Europe what they're seeing and even in remote islands it seems to be the same story.
Our political and media systems seem to be populated by half-wits who have done a Media Studies course, so don't hold out any hope that they are even aware of it, or give a toss.
Hugs.
JM.
If we think this just makes our picnics easier I really fear we will feel serious effect soon enough.
Silent Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. My farm has an abundance of Milk Weed, but the Monarchs disappeared about ten years ago. I haven't seen any butterflies in about that long. Reporting from the heart of industrial agriculture, USA.
Thanks for your video Dave. Informative as always. I share your concern re the lack of insects in my wildlife garden. I was commenting recently to my wife re the lack of butterflies in particular. I do have a bumblebee nest under my shed so that’s good. Hopefully things will pick up as the year progresses.
Thanks Professor for the rollercoaster update, much appreciated. Will search for your new book ❤🦗🪲🦟🪳🪰🐝🐞🦋🐛
Well said all round Mr. Goulson. Let's do what we can to help these creatures which we depend on for so much more than most of us realise. 🙏
Your positivity about fluctuations is to be applauded (and you, like most of us, garden for wildlife) but as you say the hard data says otherwise. The situation is dire.
I’m about to visit Dr Frans Vera’s nature reserve tomorrow, Oostvaardersplassen, in the Netherlands. Big problems require big solutions. 🐂 Changing farming practices (Knepp) and educating is more effective than voting, keep writing and educating. 📚
Barely anything this year. We have loads of flowers they usually swarm all over. I don't think I've seen a swift or swallow this year either.
I'm 70 yrs old and have done more than my fair share of travelling and the general decline in insect popularions is quite noticable.
When I was a kid our family used to go on holiday to Italy and Spain (Majorca & Ibiza), I remember seeing loads of big moths and even a 'Deaths Head Hawkmoth' + loads of wall gekos and bats. I am in Spain at the moment, at night the lights are almost totally devold of any inscets, you do see the odd geko or bat but they are few & far between. The last hawk moths I saw were in Angola a few months ago and we used have them in our garden as well as hundreds of wasps feeding on the ripining pears - not my favourite inscets.
Where I grew up in the Thames Valley just across the wesren border of Greater London as a kid in 60s the skies were 'black' with swifts and house martins especially, last year I visited the old home town and hardly saw any. From my travels this seems to be an international trend, where have all the bugs gone ?
I grow mother wort and it’s so attractive to bees every year, this year I have not seen one bee on the plants I have. The whole point of me growing them is that it brings bees in to the garden 😟
Thanks, Dave for your informed, calm views... We can ALL make a difference... Buying organic is a great idea, as is voting for govts who prioritize a healthy natural 🌎 and who ACT to protect it.
You mention that you're surrounded by pastures, are there any animals in those pastutres?
More and more cattle are permenantly housed now, which I disagree with for cattle attract insects, but the greens would like to see the cattle gone!
This has been a very poor summer in the garden here in Denmark 🙈😔 and I have been looking forward to this time of year the whole winter 😭. Well we still got July and August to hope for a buzzing garden 🤗🥰
I live in Denmark and on the property of my workplace we have done a rewildling project. It is now teaming with butterflies (at least certain species), bees, hoverflies, beetles… Many birds are thriving too. Just to say that getting together and doing something can actually help.
The public Danish broadcasting company made a series about rewildling a few years ago, and it has completely changed the discourse about rewildling. Everyone’s doing it now. It sparks hope💚
I have the sane. In November I am longing for February/march. This year feb and march were awful, as was April, and may. Barely any bees around this year.
@@liannesim9558 exactly 🙏🤞
@@03acma good effort but "rewilding" is nothing like this. You've been gardening.
Ive noticed this in the North and South of England, a serious issue for ecology and future food supply.
They're all in my yard. Cicadas, gnats, grasshoppers, bees of all kinds, wasps, worms, centipede, everything. In my suburban yard where they're not supposed to be able to thrive.
Summer used to be buzzing with insects but not any more.
As a freight train driver for the last 20 years I can give another insight into the loss of insects. 20 years ago my windscreen would be covered and it would be difficult to see out. Nowadays not so much. I also will vote Green, we need to send a message to all politicians about what is important to us and also push for proportional representation.
Green is a hidden agenda, to replace natural with artificial for benefit of pockets, profit, forced buying. Replace forest with solar panels, insert windmills into sea, make all food artificial, genetically modified, poisoned with chemicals, pesticides. All politicians are in this, sold to corporations for money. Planet suffocating under plastic, chemicals, single use clothes, solar panels, radioactive waste, batteries. Someone blew up north stream. Any '' green'' activist complain about this, weapons, wars, artificial intelligence? No, they blame the cow.
Sadly, Green politicians seem congenitally incapable of sticking to actual green issues. They spend all their time on identity politics and other fluff.
The Greens are in favour of mass immigration, the most environmentally damaging policy possible, the UK is already overpopulated
so you killed many of them
Vote green 😂
Alarming. Upsetting. In my area, North Merseyside, by the coast, the numbers if swifts and housemartins has collapsed relentlessly over 20 years: the skies used to be full of them in the evening in the nineties and early noughties, My garden is medium sized, maybe 18 by 50 metres, but it is full of flowering plants and trees. In the past, Insects were all around it. Now, I don't use insecticide, which makes weeding tiresome. and I tend to the quality of the soil, using good compost, but I can no longer find earthworms however deep I dig. The residue of local hedghogs (a fraction of its former size) must rely on slugs and snails I think. I plant only pollinator plants, in drifts, but they are no longer attractive to bees and I am lucky to see them visited by solitary bees- I am doubting that these plants contain any pollen and wonder if a fraud has been visited upon me by these major nurseries! I saw just one hoverfly last week. One hoverfly ! Mosquitos have gone entirely, where they used to be a regular summer pest. Bumble Bees are around, however, because I allow my high privets to blossom and I can hear on high the hum of bees when the rains stop: when the blossom goes, they go. I have seen one Red Admiral this year, two Cabbage Whites. I am living in an insect desert and I blame prairie farming and agricultural insecticides and farming practices around my town. What have our farmers done? I think I am right to panic, to be honest, but I will continue with my lonely efforts.
Overpopulation has put pressure on farmers to squeeze more food out of our disappearing countryside, all those years of pesticide use is killing nature and causing damage to human health
In April my lavender was covered in bees but rarely see one now. Every year I grow sunflowers and by now they are covered in bees. This year I've seen two, also the white cabbage butterfly hasn't made an appearance which seems odd.
I've noticed a reduction in number and diversity of insects over the years. Butterflies and moths in particular. Although I guess I wouldn't notice a lot of the smaller ones anyway. I have lived mainly in London, but recently moved to rural Wales. Even here I see much fewer than I expected. So far I've seen two meadow brown butterflies. The clincher for me, that the reduction is real, is that the car has a clean bonnet and windscreen after a long drive now, compared to the insect carnage of the past.