This week. 22nd to 28th June, is National Insect Week.

So I’m going to post a few of my entomological images of our six legged friends.

And they are mostly our friends. Many of them have crucial roles in our lives. And yet we are often not very friendly to them. Fair enough, when wasps build a nest in your attic, they have to go. But we could be kinder to bees and butterflies and ladybirds and other insects (including wasps when they are not invading your roof space) that pollinate and keep other pests under control, instead of zapping them on sight, mercilessly murdering them in their millions with pesticides (some of which are not very good for us either when they get into the food chain).

One way that insect numbers are estimated is by counting how many dead ones end up on the front of your car. This has been done scientifically for the last couple of decades, using grids on the number plates of a variety of vehicles. The results indicate that insect numbers have halved in that time. That’s very bad news. We need to get better at farming in harmony with nature instead of blasting it out of existence.

Rant over. Now the photos.

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