In this season of bugs, when the soundtrack of the outdoors has always been composed of the buzz of black flies and the whine of mosquitoes, there is an eerie quiet coming over the woods.

Recently, I’ve been in places wherein I’d have been just so much bug food in the 1980s and I have not had a single bite. I’ve also been reading about the precipitous decline of songbirds related to the lack of flying insect biomass and friends report birds that normally feed on the wing foraging on the ground for bugs.

My anecdotal observations seem confirmed by studies such as the Entomologischer Verein Krefeld study in Germany, documenting a 75% decline in flying insect biomass in 63 nature preserves between 1989 and 2016.

In a time of increased division, confusion and anxiety, generally, a growing insect deficit might not seem worth the worry. But bugs are the plankton of the woods and pollinators, in general, are vital to the human food chain.

I’m offering no solutions and cannot assign blame. I’m just suggesting that this is something, we, as a society, might want to brood about.

Denis Culley
Mercer