Saturday June 10 - Should we be worried?

 I must be honest, I haven't done much birding since the Spotted Sandpiper twitch on Monday. Instead I've been worrying about insects. 

Four non-birding days nevertheless including drives to Birmingham, Solihull, and Alcester (Hillers Garden Centre) in sunny warmish weather, and in all that time I saw just one butterfly, a Large White in Hiller's Garden. This doesn't feel normal. Our garden which is carefully left a mixture of messy with long grass and plenty of bright flowers produced no butterflies at all.

I did finally get out on Friday and birded around Alvechurch, seeing nothing better than a Red Kite and a family party of Grey Wagtails. The weather was warmer, and I saw a few Speckled Wood butterflies and some Longhorn Moths Nemophora degeerella, making me feel a little encouraged.

Longhorn Moth N degeerella

It should be said that it has been quite a cool spring and that there is usually a dip in butterfly numbers in early June, but I fear that years of relentless tidying up and spraying roadside vegetation, not to mention insecticide spraying of crops, may be finally bringing on the insect apocalypse which environmentalists have been warning about.

I decided to put trap out in the garden to see whether I could discern any difference there. The temperature overnight was 12 degrees C, and in the last few years at the same time of year in similar temperature I have caught 43 moths (2021), and 41 moths (2020). 64 moths in 2022 was on 15 June, so a tiny bit later.

Last night's score was 32 moths of 19 species, that's significantly down but not disastrous. 

Because I haven't been trapping for about three weeks 15 of my 19 species were new for the year. The highlights were a Clouded Border which I saw resting on the fence last night but wasn't around this morning (first for a couple of years), a Sloe Green Pug (changed my mind), Elephant Hawk-moth, and Lime Hawk-moth (annual but stunning), and a Freyer's Pug (only the third or fourth for the garden).

Green Pug

Freyer's Pug

I hope I'm just crying wolf.