camelot-forum.co.uk

We've always had bats swooping and diving around the house, once the sun was down. This year in march in the warm spell, they came out and were whizzing around. It then wet cold and damp for weeks, and since then I've hardly seen any. I hope they weren't caught out be that warm spell, waking up early and then couldn't find any food. Anyone else noticed a decline this year?

Mike

Yep, we’ve had pipistrelle and serotine throughout the summer, particularly after we installed a natural pond and left the lawn to wild flower.

Like you, saw them early in the year, noticeable by their absence since.

Also noticed a reduction in Bee, Butterfly and other insect numbers. Have a consistent ‘colony’ of Scarlet Tiger Moth, usually expect 6-8 flying late June. This year, the most I’ve seen at any one time is two.

Be interesting if we get an ant eruption - usually around this weekend, but as we’re predicted rain, dunno.

We've had hundreds of bee's (wasps happily absent) but that is due to giving over the back garden for some years to scrub.
Waited till 99% flowered before making a start ripping out what offends the manicured sterile gardens of neighbours.

Bat absence is worrying I agree.

I don't cut the lawn until August, it's full of flowers and grasses. We have a pond and stream and woods behind. Usually walking through woods, you can here the insects buzzing round the top of the trees, nothing like the usual hum this year. Almost no large bumble bees and very few butterflies. Summit bad is up...

Another wild gardener here in Derbyshire. Pretty well everything on 5 acres of meadow and garden is left to flower. The result has been unbelievable numbers of butterflies lately. It’s quite moving to see the result of leaving the nectar plants for them.
I can’t comment on bat numbers although they normally patrol the overgrown hedgerows on the lane.
Hog weed (not giant hogweed) is a prolific weed here and we do attack it but even that is very attractive to insects.

We have a bumble bee nest in one of our stables which is pretty active.

Sunrisemike wrote: ↑Sat Jul 10, 2021 4:45 pm We've always had bats swooping and diving around the house, once the sun was down. This year in march in the warm spell, they came out and were whizzing around. It then wet cold and damp for weeks, and since then I've hardly seen any. I hope they weren't caught out be that warm spell, waking up early and then couldn't find any food. Anyone else noticed a decline this year?
Mike

I slept out under the apple trees earlier this month, mainly to avoid the heat (success) and to look for meteors (fail) but then it was much too early in the cycle.
However I did see a few big moths and just a couple of bats.
We usually see several circling round the back of the house during the summer - and get the evidence: things like mousecraps (exactly like... German name of Fledermaus is no coincidence!) stuck to the outside of our windows... I presume they must let them go during their handbrake turns!
Anyway, none of them this year, I presume it is down to the twin pressures of loss of nest sites as old trees get felled and houses and outbuildings are renovated (no access to lofts anymore) and then loss of food supply on top of that: The windscreen test shows that there are hardly any insects getting splatted compared with a decade or two ago. I blame obsessive tidying-up/Ideal Home-type garden makeovers.
It's a real shame that so many people can't leave any space for nature.
A