[H]omer wrote:
Am I imagining this, or do we (NE. Scotland) have a severe shortage of
insects this year?

Due to the summer heat, I invariably just leave my bedroom window open
24/7, for weeks on end, and as you can imagine, I usually get all
sorts of "visitors", from moths (at night) to crane flies and even the
odd earwig, but this year ... nothing.

I've noticed this in the garden too. In the course of catching up on a
neglected garden (*lots* of weeds) I've been moving a lot of stuff
around, like boulders and stone planters etc., and usually you see a
lot of beasties living underneath - mostly wood lice, etc., but I've
found none at all this year.

So far this year, I've seen:

. 2 House Flies
. 1 Wasp
. 2 Slugs
. 5 Snails
. 0 Butterflies
. 0 Ladybirds
. 0 Bees
. 0 Bluebottles
. 0 Crane Flies
. 2 Earwigs
. 0 Rain Beatles
. 0 Woodlice

And not much of anything else.

Another obvious symptom is my Hostas, which usually get completely
decimated by Slugs and Snails, are completely untouched this year -
not a single nibble.

I've taken zero steps to control pests this year (I've been
*extremely* busy at work, and have *badly* neglected the garden). I
have used *no* weedkillers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides,
fertilisers, or any other control (chemical or otherwise), in fact in
previous year I always used non-chemical (organic) control methods,
such as nematodes, etc., but this year I haven't even done that.

The bird count seems down this year too, esp. the smaller varieties,
such as chaffinches, blue tits, etc.

The balance of ecology seems to have been badly damaged up here ... by
something, and it's very worrying.

The only thing I can think of is that we are in an area of intense
rapeseed farming, which by all accounts is probably genetically
modified, and I deeply suspect this of affecting the food chain
somehow.

Is this the only area suffering, or have others noticed a decline too?

I have never noticed such a good year for trees and songbirds. The song
thrush or lark has been particularly pleasant this year and I saw my
forst sparrow family in years a few days ago.

Maybe they have had a bean feast or maybe the weather has been so
pleasant that humidity levels haven't kept me dopey and irritable all
summer?

Some pretty insect landed on my shirt a few weeks back. No idea what it
was but the snail was on the thorn and god in his heaven that day. It's
beena beautiful late spring and this is a very unusually pleasant
summer.

More please god.