September 3, 2023
In this anisotropicplus video I realized a few days ago that our porch which historically is a favorite nesting place for paper wasps and mud daubers has not had any new wasp or mud dauber nests since last year. We never did like being under constant threat of being stung, but it does concern me that they have essentially been completely absent this year not only on our porch, but our other out buildings as well. This video shows you what I am talking about not only for the wasps, but also for significantly diminished insect splatter on our windshields. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windshield_phenomenon The windshield phenomenon (or windscreen phenomenon) is the observation that fewer dead insects accumulate on the windshields and front bumpers of people’s cars since the early 2000s. It has been attributed to a global decline in insect populations caused by human activity, e.g. use of pesticides. Background As early as the 2000s it became a commonplace observation among drivers that after a long drive, windshields no longer had to be cleaned of numerous insects.[2][3][4] In 2016, Canadian naturalist John Acorn noted that the phenomenon had recently become a meme but questioned whether it is “reasonable to assume that windshields can tell us something about the overall numbers of insects” and also that “humans are notoriously bad at detecting trends”.[5] The windshield phenomenon was widely discussed in 2017 after major publications and media covered the topic of reductions in insect abundance over the last few decades.[6] Entomologists stated that they had noticed that they no longer had to frequently clean their windshields.
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