You are so right. Insects are mass breeders, and it's common for the numbers of any given species to veer wildly from year to year. We may or may not be seeing

You are so right. Insects are mass breeders, and it's common for the numbers of any given species to veer wildly from year to year. We may or may not be seeing a serious setback for insects in general, but given a chance, they will bounce back within a few short generations. And so will their predators, albeit over a longer stretch of time. For what it's worth, nature seems remarkably unperturbed up here a little north of Germany. Some counts up, some counts down. Two years ago, we had mice everywhere, this year hardly any. But then a recent infestation of butterflies, and the bats are doing extraordinarily well this summer, as are the spiders apparently - hardly indicative of any extreme dearth of insects.