I agree with you Mick. Not so much variety or number of birds either, excepting the damn magpies.
I wonder if anyone else has noticed this, maybe you Des?
Normally, living in the countryside like I do, I see a lot of insect life by this time in the year.
I’ve never known as few flies, bees, wasps, ladybirds and daddy long legs by this time in the year.
We didn’t get a single May Beetle this year either which is very strange.
Something feels wrong, it’s like something is messing with the natural order of things.
I agree with you Mick. Not so much variety or number of birds either, excepting the damn magpies.
I am the co-ordinator for an insect recording scheme in South East England and everyone is saying the same, April with its cold winds & low temperatures, was an absolute disaster. Things have begun to pick up in the last couple of weeks but we are about a month behind where we should be.
I’m surprised to hear you say that about April Epsom.
My business is very weather dependent during spring and summer and we had a fantastic April due to the weather being so nice, not nearly as warm as 2020 at the same stage but nevertheless a very dry and sunny month.
May was terrible, as wet as I can ever recall, June is now set fair to be a very nice month looking at the forward forecast.
The lack of insects suits me because my house seems to attract them, I have a can of fly spray in almost every room as the flies drive me mad.
I only kill flies though and wasps if they’re proving difficult to catch, I always catch and release Bees.
Saw on spring watch that everything is a month behind due to the cold April temperatures that’s why the swift’s n swallows were late arriving as the insect life they eat just hadn’t hatched yet
They said bluetits will struggle to raise young this year because they feed there young on caterpillars that eat oak tree leaves but the cold meant the leaves were late opening so no caterpillars on the trees so the bluetits had very little food supply
Mick you are right about the sunshine; it was the cold temperatures & particularly the biting winds which were the game-changers. As Viaduct says we are about a month behind
Lots of insects by us Mick, the field's behind us are full of bee's, butterflies, and shield beetle's.
I saw lot's of May bug's last month.
The field's behind us though are horse field's and full of wildflowers.
Not just this Year.
Do we all remember years ago when our windscreens and number plates where covered with dead insects after we took a drive in the country at this time of year.
Yo Micky kid lol, and hey Im sure Al would agree with me as well... there's been one hell of an annoying insect on here recently, and he's called OWV.