I remember as a child insects where everywhere:
- flies in the kitchen – all food had to be covered up, you could by those special popup mesh food covers, i have not seen one in use for years!
- wasps – we used to make traps out of jam jars with a hole in the lid and jam in the bottom. they fly in and cannot find their way out again. if you where kind you could open the lid when your picnic was over and let the free!
- butterflies – they where everywhere and we just took them for granted
- mosquitoes – i grew up by the river and if you dared to leave a door or window open in the evening once the lights where on you would shouted at. you would have a room full of mosquitoes in no time if you did not have nets on windows you wanted to leave open at night
I am really noticing it on this boat trip, I packed a mosquito net and only one night i actually needed to use it. I have left doors and windows open and its not an issue. We could celebrate this as they are a pest but they are also food for bats, birds, invertebrates, fish and to name a few species that rely on this food source.
I passed thru the Fanny Compton Tunnel today, its now a cutting and has been allowed to overgrow with scrub. I saw 4 butterflies which is the most i have seen on the whole of this trip. It is shocking that 4 seems like a lot but at least this one small place has been left for nature.
I am really sad that i am living thru the start of the Holocene extinction and feel a lot helpless, but there are things we can all do. Here are some really great tips for how you can personally help insects and if you want to do some citizen science the bugs matter survey is happening again this year.