Bee populations seem to be down here, too, with flowery margins that would at this time of year normally be alive with pollinators now eerily quiet. Hoverflies are depleted, moths scarce and aphids have either appeared very late or not at all. Buddleia bushes, with their fragrant mauve flowers that are usually festooned with butterflies, moths and many other insects, sit naked of their normal visitors.

There are several probable reasons for this sudden reduction compared with typical summers. The weather has not helped, with a cool and wet spring across much of the country suppressing insect numbers. But even with that factored in, this year’s sudden drop comes after many years of much longer-term decline.

When I was a child travelling in a car during the summer, journeys were accompanied by windscreen collisions with all kinds of insects – moths, beetles, butterflies, aphids, lacewings, craneflies and more. When we stopped, a clean of the front windscreen was often required, as the invertebrate debris overwhelmed the washers and wipers.

These days, drivers can cross the entire country and finish their journey with a clean screen. It’s true that cars are more streamlined and that some small flying creatures will whiz past rather than being hit, but numberplates are still as flat and as lethal as they ever were, and from those we have some data.

Surveys going back 20 years to 2004 reveal a sharp drop in the number of insects found splattered on numberplates in the UK. The scale of decline is staggering, with evidence gathered from numberplates showing a drop of 78% between then and 2023. Such findings place this year’s sudden insect decline into the context of a longer-term trend and show how erratic weather patterns are hitting already depleted populations.

article from the guardian linked