A bug’s life

I had a lovely time at the beginning of the month driving with Mrs Burnett to see friends in Northern Ireland, a roadtrip across three different islands and three different countries, with a 3.5 hour run at the front of a large boat where I chugged as many cans of Pepsi as my poor stomach could take because I'd paid extra for lounge access. I now know exactly what a foam fire extinguisher feels like. 

We drove, and the amazing thing when we got to our destination in Northern Ireland was not that it was sunny (though it was indeed amazing – our third visit and the first time we've seen shadows) but that the car was absolutely festooned with dead bugs. The windscreen was so badly smeared it could have been a bathroom window, the numberplate riddled with more legs and wings than a south London chicken shop. 

It made me realise that it's been a goodly amount of time since I've seen such a massacre of invertebrates on the car, at least in the UK. There are some interesting possible reasons behind this – a warmer, wetter spring following a drier winter has meant that bug have managed to survive long enough to be thwacked in the face with a Hyundai. Or perhaps the biodiversity of Northern Ireland is simply better – it's a lush green agricultural land, with cows and sheep aplenty. Or it could be that the insects round those parts are exceptionally stupid and are attracted to fast moving, brightly coloured hunks of metal. 

Coincidentally, I saw on my return to pastures less green but still more green than most other places that the annual dead insect count is set to take place shortly. Basically there’s an organisation that gets motorists to drive around for a bit and then stick a thing on their numberplates to see how boned we are on the climate. Fingers crossed people, but I think it’s looking good. But not if you’re a fly.