This article by Robin McKie, Observer science editor, will have you thinking differently about what are often called the pests of summer:
Where have all our insects gone?
There is a crisis in the countryside – and a massive decline in insect numbers could have significant consequences for the environment
A great yellow bumblebee. Its numbers have declined steeply in recent years. Photograph: Alamy
When Simon Leather was a student in the 1970s, he took a summer job as a postman and delivered mail to the villages of Kirk Hammerton and Green Hammerton in North Yorkshire. He recalls his early morning walks through its lanes, past the porches of houses on his round. At virtually every home, he saw the same picture: windows plastered with tiger moths that had been attracted by lights the previous night and were still clinging to the glass. “It was quite a sight,” says Leather, who is now a professor of entomology at Harper Adams University in Shropshire. Continue reading
Birds feature more than any other topic in these pages. We have laid out bird-friendly territory over the years, and now Natalie Angier brings us a science news story that would be disturbing if not for our overall appreciation for the value of biodiversity.
Organikos 