Insects in general.

Seems to be. Pesticides are getting too good. I thought I heard some depressing statistic that insects have dropped some phenomenal percentage. Like 40% or something. To me that's extinction level events. Because of all the critters that eat them. Hopefully someone can prove me wrong. I think I read it somewhere, but that's so depressing I probably blotted it out.

As mentioned pesticides are killing them off, big problems with bees at the moment, a brighter light than 'climate change' needs to be shun on it, far more damage incoming.

Fertilizer use in Ireland is significantly less than 20 to 40 years ago and that trend is accelerating rapidly.

In terms of agriculture we are among the lowest users anyway but that's falling quickly. Asia is the fertilizer junkie, poor ground flogged hard and washed out every monsoon, at rates unimaginable to Irish agriculture for half the yield.

Pesticide use is way down as well. These chemicals are not good for nature of course, especially when overused but there is something else going on.

The mild January followed by a cold February and a wet march followed by an April with an East window. The damage that did to wildlife here is incredible. We are now a much wetter country than historical norm, where much drier to long dry periods were normal.

The mild winters are doing wreck as well.

My honey bees were flying hard in January, if they didn't have big stores they would have starved after. What about insects that woke up then, they were out of sync with their food and months to go.

It is much less, from studies in Germany, unless you are saying a drop of 70 to 80, which is spot on.

it's the same here, remember much of Germany is woodland and less intensive farming than 30 years ago.

In the 80s if you Left a window open at home, within 10 minutes there could be 30 insects flittering around the light, now it could be open all night and you might only have a few.

I would say that it is slightly better now than a few years ago.

Collie Ennis and Colette Kinsella of the Critter Shed Podcast covered this a bit in one episode. The former a research associate in the Department of Zoology at Trinity College Dublin. I think in the end the quick answer is "Its complicated and multi factorial". I hope this is the right episode: open.spotify.com/episode/0hIJPgHHIy0gkZCtRMmzdM

Like you he comments on how older people remember how after a long drive you used to have to clean the dead bugs off the screen and now we don't.

I'm agree, just pointing out an awful lot of ground doesn't see a spreader from one year to the next and the ones that do mostly see a lot less fertilizer than decades ago and that trend is rapidly accelerating.

Dairy and tillage are seeing fertilizer reduction but a lot less, still they are only a part of the picture.

Yes meant drop. In the 80's/90's there'd be a thousand red dots all over your car windscreen all through the summer. Little to nothing these days.

Isn't there a certain herbicide or pesticide used in Ireland, that is banned from most countries in the EU? I'm sure I read that somewhere a few years ago.

Butterflies are plant specific or rather the caterpillars. Peacocks need nettles etc.Without diversity in the sward you will lack butterflies and moths.

https://butterflyconservation.ie/wp/2022/08/03/lets-love-larvae/

Good stands of nettles in our field in the bits I don't keep cut. I do see a few peacocks about most recent summers but worthy of mention when you would see them. Cabbage whites are another matter altogether, have had brassicas stripped in the past unless they are kept netted.

Main decline in farmland birds happened between 1970 and 2000 with rollout of intensive farming practices like the switch from silage to hay and associated heavy use of chem fert and herbicides. Switch from Spring to Winter arble crops was also a factor as it led to loss of overwinter stubble food sources. Monoculture spruce forestry and the activities of Bord Na Mona were also significant factors here in terms of habitat loss for species like Curlew, Red Grouse etc. Your perception of current bird populations and insect numbers would be a case of "shifting baselin syndrome" of which we are all susceptible too for various reasons. Cos of my age I was lucky enough to know and talk to people who grew up in rural areas during the 20's and 30's and in terms of farmland wildlife numbers including birds.moths, grasshoppers etc., there clearly has been a massive reduction since those times:(

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/ireland-unlikely-to-follow-germany-in-banning-weed-killer-glyphosate-1.4008986

I don't think pheasants have much of an affect to wildlife in this country. For the most part, their numbers are way down. Fox rely more so on rabbits, than anything else, and even rabbit numbers have plummeted.

The biggest thing that is affecting wildlife, be it animal, bird, or insect, is the loss of suitable habitat. The EU, and the Irish Government promoted the use of every inch of land for production of either animals or crops, leaving nothing for wildlife. In recent years they are trying to reverse that trendnsomewhat, but the damage is done. A few feet of untouched grass verges, doesn't cut the mustard though, does it.

When I was a young lad, there was so much more predators, and plenty of everything else as well, including game birds, and native wildlife. There was so many orchards in the towns, never mind the countryside. Bring back the habitat, and the animals, and insects will return.

I won't hold my breath though. The government ain't loosing a wink of sleep over it.