When my father drove on holidays in his 1950’s Ford Prefect he stopped regularly to clear a black curtain.
Out came an old cloth to deal with a film of squashed insects obscuring windscreen and headlights and infiltrating the radiator grille after just an hour’s motoring.
Fast forward to today and this phenomenon is virtually unknown. Insects are disappearing so fast that a 2019 study of car number plates after trips in Kent uncovered 50 per cent fewer splatted bugs compared with 2004.
Now the charity Buglife has launched a free Bugs Matter app so drivers can collect valuable insect data and ring alarm bells.
Yet insects remain the most abundant animals on Earth, with millions of species. There may have been four Beatles but there are about 392,400 British beetle species from miniscule examples too small for the human eye to the formidably-jawed stag beetle.
Insects, from weevils and caddis flies to dragonflies and snakeflies, are essential to our ecosystems, pollinating plants, providing food for other creatures and recycling nature’s waste. In the UK, ranges of many bumblebee species more than halved between 1960 and 2012 and the number of butterflies fell by almost 50% between 1976 and 2017.
Wild Things: A life off the ground
Stag beetle
Author Paul D. Brock attributes insect loss mainly to human intervention and suggests we should admire them rather than poison them with pesticides.
His new guide to Britain and Ireland's insects will surely become the definitive identification volume on the subject with 1,653 species covered. The book includes more than 2,600 amazing photographs showing key identification features allowing easy comparison with similar species in 316 families and almost 850 genera. Distribution maps help the reader track down a particular insect and there are photographic hints too.
This latest in a superb series of Princeton University Press wildlife guides maintains an established reputation for accuracy and detail.
Wild Things: Basking in the sunshine
From the same publisher comes a compendium of bird lore fun guaranteed to entertain. There’s not much on British birds between the covers of Birdpedia by Christopher Leahy who boasts a Minnesota life list of 341 birds and a US life list of 526. But if you relish humorous bird trivia it will tickle your sense of humour.
Britain’s Insects by Paul D Brock is published by Princeton University Press for the WildGuides series Price £25.
Birdpedia by Christopher W. Leahy is published by Princeton University Press price £9.99.
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