There's An Insect Shortage

[mso489]

Though it may be hard to believe for anyone contending with mosquitos, locusts, yellow jackets, carpenter bees, horse flies, fleas, or chiggers -- just for examples --but there is an insect shortage, I've read, and it's serious. The problem is, despite all the plagues and miseries some perpetuate, insects provide a the crucial service of pollination for human food crops as well as all kinds of ecological good like feeding other animal populations like birds, fish, amphibians, and reptiles.

When I brought my recycling cart up from the curb this afternoon, I was met by a large bumblebee that hung over me and the cart. It left and came back, and I eventually just backed away, to park the cart more neatly later. I think the bee had the message that others may be gone, but he or she was definitely here for the summer.

I've been missing my Northern Mockingbirds as well. They used to be all over central North Carolina like robins and Canada geese, but I haven't seen one for about a year now. I think I spot them, and it turns out to be something else.

 

[CoffeeAndBourbon]

We have plenty of the mockingbirds down by the coast! Having standoffs in the middle of the streets too.

 

[ashdigger]

Anecdotal.

 

[mso489]

I'm glad to hear it, about the mockingbirds at the coast. Maybe it's too dry inland right now, or maybe it is the insect shortage that's more pronounced further from the coast.

Sure, it's anecdotal, but they used to be a virtual circus here most of the year, sitting on the tops of flag poles and pine trees, singing their hearts out and doing double back flips mid-song. You'd see them flashing that white on their wings (chevrons I think they're called) in the bushes and yards, and of course there was always the virtuous singing. You can really "hear" their absence.

 

[mso489]

Sorry, chiggers are not insects but are arachnids. Anyway ...

 

[Briar Tuck]

How are we supposed to eat zee bugs if there is an insect shortage? I guess they'd better ramp up production at the cricket farms.

 

[georged]

Like global warming/climate change, issues that are too complex to even be defined and agreed upon---never mind demonstated or proved to a courtroom standard---are the Social Media Era's new weapon of choice. Why? because they CAN'T be settled, only argued about.

Put another way, periodically some large-scale situation or other becomes the "New Thing", and millions of people are swayed by it one way or the other.

Tribalism does the rest.

All you can be sure of is that someone, somewhere, is counting vast stacks of money and smiling.

 

[mso489]

Here's a note on Northern Mockingbirds I came across; they population is declining.

Northern Mockingbird populations declined by about 0.7% per year for a cumulative decline of approximately 30% from 1966 to 2019, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey.

I hadn't noticed this until the past two or three years, but now in my area, it seems overt.

 

[UB 40]

40 years ago in summer I drove in my VW Beatle all the way down from Cologne to Milano via Basel. It’s about 500 kilometres or so to Basel. The windscreen collected masses of crashed insects.

The same route I took two years ago. The screen kept almost clean until Basel. That’s anecdotal.

The absence of insects are the consequences of monoculture and pesticides in food industries worldwide, that’s a fact, a sad fact indeed and in no way anecdotal.

 

[verporchting]

Not to be nitpicking but unless you have a bee under your bonnet I wouldn’t let it bug you, it’s just gnat worth it.

 

[instymp]

Heard about bees also.
I walk out under our bottle brush tree and it sounds like I am in a hive, hundreds all day long.

 

[georged]

Not to be nitpicking but unless you have a bee under your bonnet I wouldn’t let it bug you, it’s just gnat worth it.

Kevin, this guy should get some sort of prize. ^^^^

Just sayin'

 

[ashdigger]

Like global warming/climate change, issues that are too complex to even be defined and agreed upon---never mind demonstated or proved to a courtroom standard---are the Social Media Era's new weapon of choice. Why? because they CAN'T be settled, only argued about.

Put another way, periodically some large-scale situation or other becomes the "New Thing", and millions of people are swayed by it one way or the other.

Tribalism does the rest.

All you can be sure of is that someone, somewhere, is counting vast stacks of money and smiling.

My Pet Rock would like a word.

 

[Briar Tuck]

Heard about bees also.
I walk out under our bottle brush tree and it sounds like I am in a hive, hundreds all day long.

Same thing here on the Oregon coast. There are so many bees pollinating the wild berries in my front yard in the spring and summer that you can hear them from the house.

 

[instymp]

Same thing here on the Oregon coast. There are so many bees pollinating the wild berries in my front yard in the spring and summer that you can hear them from the house.

Guess that covers the NW to the SE about as far as you can draw a line across the USA.

 

[AJL67]

Though it may be hard to believe for anyone contending with mosquitos, locusts, yellow jackets, carpenter bees, horse flies, fleas, or chiggers -- just for examples --but there is an insect shortage, I've read, and it's serious. The problem is, despite all the plagues and miseries some perpetuate, insects provide a the crucial service of pollination for human food crops as well as all kinds of ecological good like feeding other animal populations like birds, fish, amphibians, and reptiles.

When I brought my recycling cart up from the curb this afternoon, I was met by a large bumblebee that hung over me and the cart. It left and came back, and I eventually just backed away, to park the cart more neatly later. I think the bee had the message that others may be gone, but he or she was definitely here for the summer.

I've been missing my Northern Mockingbirds as well. They used to be all over central North Carolina like robins and Canada geese, but I haven't seen one for about a year now. I think I spot them, and it turns out to be something else.

Did you do a little dance?

 

[mikethompson]

Insects definitely are an important part of the food chain, whether you eat them straight up, or by way of several animals.

 

[yanoJL]

So.... I visited Mexico last July....

 

[georged]

Whatever the cause(s), one thing I'm DAMN sure of is I'll take more of pretty much ANY bug than these stinkin' things.

Say hello to the latest species of disease-carrying, crawly, clingy vampires.

Their population is exploding.

 

[Pipingntrucking]

Insect shortage I imagine is only near the city lines. I promise you- one night with a clear windshield in my truck and delivery to my first customer of the night- we can handily disprove any "scientist" that has been motivated by the push of the social disease.....social media narratives. the first strike on the windshield will be the one that irritates you the most. Somehow they always know where dead center of your main sight line is.

However, yes. Nearer to cities and suburbs I can maybe give their notion some credibility. Between golf courses, solar panel farms, froo froo peoples manicured lawns, clear cutting for housing areas, or apartment monstrocities for the locusts that come through for a few short years chasing down temporary jobs. There is enough habitat being lost and chemicals being thrown around. What doesn't die gets chased to the country side- and many of those sacrifice themselves against my windshield as I deliver 8800 gallons of fuel to somewhere.