RSPB insect splat research (1 Viewer)

I just heard a guy from the RSPB on Radio 5 Live saying how the RSPB want to find out if our native insect population is declining and thus a factor in insect eating bird decline. They have designed a plate to fit low down on the front of cars to catch insect splats. They will then analyse these to see what is out there - insect wise.

Apparently RSPB staff are trialling this at present and they want as many people as possible to volunteer to help the project next year.

They have developed an automated system for counting the splats so I guess you egt issued with cards, do a set journey and send the card and journey info back to them for analysis

Sounds... interesting?

Is it April 1st already???

I did wonder, but the interview seemed genuine?

Walwyn has his theories about this. Check out his post on Ruffled Feathers.

Dave

They might get more if they design a filter cup to hold in your open mouth when out cycling!

I always think you can identify a happy biker if he has flies in his teeth

The survey will start in 2004 it must be true as my nephew saw it on Blue Peter !!!!!!!!!!!

The idea behind the "splatometer" is to get a baseline of the density of insects throughout the U.K. If the trials are o.k it will be rolled out across the U.K. via volunteers, mainly during the peak of the breeding season. It will also run for a few years , and hopefully , gives trends in insects nos and fluctuations.

In another thread (I've forgotten which one) we had a discussion on the apparent fact that cow pats remain not broken down by insects etc for many months and the explanation was of a drug administered to the cattle to prevent illness which renders the cowpat more sterile and thus you see less of these swarming with flies.

I was discussing this with a birding friend and mulling over the relative lack of insects such as when we check out some of the local ditches for odonata. This was just over a week ago and on a hot day with little wind and plenty of water and my friend was saying that years ago we would have been molested by lots of insects. He went on to say that you rarely see cars with windscreens plastered with dead flies nowadays. There is an engineering answer to that in as much as the cars are more aerodynamically designed and less "debris" hits the screen BUT that does not apply to number plates which are still placed right at the front of the car and arranged vertically.

Where cars are used on relatively short journeys, there are few flies stuck there and only after, say, a long motorway run do you get a reasonable number but I have not seen the really plastered look for many years. I believe that there are fewer insects on the wing now.

Finally, I have read about the following but never seen it myself until returning from the unofficial Devon bash over a week ago when I stopped at a service area on the motorway and noticed a House Sparrrow (getting rarer itself now), jumping up in front of the parked cars to grab squashed insects from the bumper bar or that plastic thing on the front which purports to be such.

Colin said:

you rarely see cars with windscreens plastered with dead flies nowadays.

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I was going to say this very thing myself, Colin.

It's something that has just crept up very gradually and, until it was pointed out to us at a conference a few months ago, I hadn't even registered the number of insects on the windscreen diminishing.

Even after our recent trip to Scotland there were very few on the front of the car by the time we arrived. Even though there were some midges around up there, there weren't enough to bother me, and I didn't get bitten once.

Something's happening.

Here is the story on this from today's Independent:

Car 'splatometers' may help scientists solve riddle of insect decline
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor 30 June 2003


Introducing the splato-meter! You might think it's wacky. You might think it's the midsummer version of an April fool. But it's a perfectly serious invention, and may yet unlock the secrets of an ominous yet little-publicised environmental phenomenon: the widespread disappearance of insects.

It's so simple you wonder why no one has thought of it before. A postcard-sized piece of plastic film, the splatometer fits to the front of your car and measures the number of airborne bugs that splat against it during a road journey. It is intended to give a statistical basis to a growing public perception - that a lot fewer of them are about than there used to be.

It has been devised by conservation scientists at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds who intend it to be used by tens of thousands of people in a mass "citizen science" exercise, like its Big Garden Birdwatch, which more than 300,000 people responded to this year.

Concerned over declines in many bird species, the RSPB thinks - like a growing number of conservationists - that a general decline in insect numbers may well be responsible. Bumblebees, mayflies, butterflies, moths, beetles and many other insect species appear to be tumbling in numbers and vanishing from many places, the common species as much as the rare ones.

It is a critical development, because insects are the most numerous of all organisms and underpin all ecosystems, providing food for countless other species and playing a crucial role in plant pollination. But it is only just being noticed by scientists, and hard data is lacking.

The splatometer aims to remedy the data deficiency. At the end of a journey, it peels off from the front of your car and can be scanned by a computer to show how many bugs you have splattered.

"We think the splatometer will give us better information on insect abundance than has been collected before," said Dr Mark Avery, the RSPB director of conservation. "We do think insects are declining, but there aren't lots of long-term data sets that show it, like there are for birds and plants. Insects have been a neglected group."

digi-birder said:

Something's happening.

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Its the microwave transmitters for mobile phones.

Seriously, the number of bugs splattering against the windscreen on a trip to Cornwall is not the same today as it was when we were driven there on holiday as kids in 60s. But as has been pointed out the aerodynamics of a Hillman Imp are totally different from that of a Ford Focus.

I got a new car last Wednesday (well secondhand but from a dealer, so it came all valeted and polished), I've driven 400 miles in it so far, and yesterday the amount of bugs that were on the front bumper, number plate, and leading edge of the bonnet, could be said to have plastered the area. However, 300+ of those miles have been on rural roads, and the car is white so maybe they show up more.

The loan car I had whilst waiting for the Insurance to pay out did about 2,000 miles in 3 weeks. I had to put it through the car wash twice, because I couldn't really hand it back with that number of bugs over the front of it.