Wind of change

Val looks at a report aiming to reverse the decline of insects

- Val Bourne

I HAVE been fascinated by insect life since I was tiny, and when I was only two or three years old I remember watching a bumblebee visit a dark aquilegia on a May morning. I became even more interested in insects when I had a lowly post in vegetable research in the 1970s. I had to look down a microscope at greenfly and, after making sure that their feeding tube wasn’t stuck into the infected plant, I had to move them on to new plants. Nothing prepares you for the beauty of an aphid seen through a high-power lens, as the more magnification you use, the more mind-boggling it becomes.

A decade later in the 1980s, when I was teaching, I borrowed a lot of equipment and took my class out to look for ‘minibeasts’ in the school grounds. In those days insect life was abundant, but a team of workmen came in every week and strimmed, mowed and sprayed the area. After a fruitless afternoon of searching the school grounds, we found diddly-squat!