I'm only 40 years old and I remember how different it was. If you went on a weekend trip your car would be splattered with insects all over. Our garden used to be full of butterflies and other insects. I've been stung so many times but for my kids it's a really rare occasion.

Not to mention the weeks of snow instead of the scattered few days we have now. And hardly anybody seems to care.

if there's one thing boomers hate it's giving up convenience

And admitting they were wrong!

My parents continue to try to rationalize the bonkers-ass weather we've been having every year.

I try to explain some concepts to them, like artic jets that cause flash freezes in otherwise mild winters, or the unseasonably warm weather we have throughout most of the winter, or the rarity of snowfall we've had over the past few years. Even ten or twenty years ago, it wasn't like this.

And yet whenever I try explaining these things, I can practically see the layers of cognitive dissonance they're spinning it through in their heads before they give a non-committal "yeah" in one of those insincere "everything is fine because I wasn't actually paying attention" sort of ways...

Yup, it's easy to not notice that when people present stats in a way to be misleading.

Native plants should also be less upkeep by virtue of being native. They have developed to thrive in that environment. They've developed resistance to local bugs, and the local rainfall and temperature cycle.

I've met some people that say they enjoy yardwork, but that sure isn't me! I'd rather see cool spiders, dragonflies, bees, and butterflies. And with local wildflowers, it's something unique to where you live, I'd think people would enjoy that.

Grass is just another chore to me.

No do not clean up your leaves. Baby bugs use the leaves to keep warm in the winter. Cleaning up the leaves is reducing the population of helpful bugs.

I like to ask people i meet IRL if they have a lawn. Follow up question is why then?

A lot of people seem to be unaware of the history and origin of lawns. Put oversimply, they are and have always been about gross excess resources expenditure to show those around you how rich you are.

I just happened to step outside late one night as the mosquito truck rolled by, with a dopey sounding single stroke engine pumping out a cloud of spray.

It works, we don't have any skeeters in our neighborhood. We also don't have lightning bugs, labybugs, dragonflies, butterflies, bees, or most other flying critters. We do have wasps, though. Those bastards are indestructible apparently.

I was in Queens, NY, in THE city, no woods, pastures, or even parks around anywhere nearby, and yet there were lightning bugs everywhere we went at night. We can't have them where we live next to nature, but they have them in the city, because they don't spray clouds of POISON down their streets, "for the bugs."

I mentioned this to group of residents recently, and we all agreed said that we'd be happy to trade a few skeeter bites each summer if it meant we could see lightning bugs and butterflies again.

I remember the fireflies in late summer outside the cities. They are nowhere to be found anymore, unfortunately.

So you're saying my brown thumb is not totally my fault??? 😉

The wife is terrified of bees, but I get excited to see them anymore. Especially the weird local bees.

I tried to plant some bee and butterfly friendly plants but they all got cooked in a heat wave last year or something.

I mean, there's other solutions

Flying of course!

Not to be confused with fly fishing.

LOL it took me so long to spot that since I kept looking at the only bubble with water in it! I was wondering how bad are my eyes? 😅

Making me wonder if this was AI generated.

That's getting harder and harder to do for a lot of people. 🥺

It's one of the reason I try to represent a lot of more rare and exotic owls here. A lot of stuff we will never have the opportunity to see, especially in person, so I want to at least make people see what needs protecting. I think that's why well-run zoos and animal education centers are so important. It's near impossible to get people to care about things that they don't know even exist.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/fifty-years-ago-david-attenborough-changed-the-way-we-see-the-world-now-we-must-heed-his-warning-8294239

In my lifetime – and even more so in Sir David’s – the natural world has suffered an extraordinary and devastating decline. Since the spread of industrial agriculture, the planet has lost more than two-thirds of its wildlife populations. Today, 96 per cent of all mammal biomass on Earth is made up of humans and farmed animals. Just four per cent is wild.

At COP26, he ended his address with words that deserve to be remembered: “If working apart we are a force powerful enough to destabilise our planet, surely working together we are powerful enough to save it… In my lifetime I’ve witnessed a terrible decline. In yours, you could – and should – witness a wonderful recovery.”

It would become a very long cartoon if we included everywhere. 😁

Wherever the environment changes, it benefits some organisms at the cost of others. The Northern Spotted Owl vs Barred Owl situation has really highlighted that here.

Like you said, nature itself is always changing, and things will adapt or fall off to accommodate the new reality. A healthy and natural ecosystem doesn't need to look like the picture, it just tried to highlight how we can lose an understanding of how things could or should be over generations.

I hear everyone getting rid of all the fallen leaves is a big reason fireflies aren't as common anymore. The leaves provide food, moisture, and shelter for the fireflies for the 2 years before they get wings. So when people collect all the leaves off the ground, they get rid of all the things that keep them alive.

There have been and will be tremendous wins, and this isn't intended as doomerism, so I hope that is clear. Almost everything I share is intended to inspire people that they can make a difference.

While many of us are doing our part to save things and help others recover, there are still tons of pressure to open preserve to mining or drilling or timber, efforts to roll back protections of waterways, and multiple other efforts to turn nature into cash and resources.

I just saw this post and it reminded me of all the times we discuss the Overton Window in politics, and this felt similar to how people can see our ecosystems. I really only expect this to get like 30 upvotes, but people have really taken an interest to it.

So did I. And I remember having to wash the bugs off the windshield at every stop for gas. I've seen the ecosystem on my front porch collapse in the last 5 years. And I have the healthiest yard on the block, maybe the entire hood.

Interesting observation. Often one of the best times to spot and identify butterflies is really in the morning before they've warmed up and are basking in the sun with their wings wide open. I don't think it's unreasonable for people to draw butterflies as they're most easily seen.

Having spent so much time looking at owls now, probably 90% of owl drawings I see have the feet drawn in really silly ways. They're not always impossible ways for them to have their toes, but how they actually need to use them to hunt or to distribute their body weight is just not often depicted correctly. I think it's because most depictions fail to capture the correct ratio of foot:body and it doesn't look right (because it isn't), so they stick the outer toes in places they don't belong to fill that space.

The butterfly is probably the same way. We've seen that incorrect image displayed so much that the falsehood has replaced the truth for many of us. Even after we're shown it's incorrect, we often can have trouble reconciling it with years of having it ingrained the other way.

Things were much better back in my day. Everything went to hell around the Triassic. You kids wouldn't know, with your phones and your tablets and opposable thumbs.

EDIT: That was a good read btw

I feel as guilty as the next human for things out of my hands, but even I won't take blame for what happened before an apocalyptic meteor strike! 😜

Neat article though! I love the Devonian.

Look what they took from us.

I feel even that fits, as it's one bag today, but if no one feels the need to pick up a bag that isn't theirs, maybe tomorrow 2 bags is normal...

Some species (I can reference owls specifically, of course) do benefit from some types of man-made clearings. Field and orchards can provide nice open areas for those that hunt while flying or ones perched high on the periphery and have a great view of rodents going after dropped fruit or grains.

But when we leave nothing for the wildlife, use poisons or other deterrents, or add hazards, then we're just taking from the environment while giving nothing back. I've been happy to be able to highlight new programs for farmers and large landowners where they can get assistance or even get paid for turning corners of their properties back into those which will sustain biodiversity. A few weeks ago someone reached out saying their family had farmland and wanted to know what they could do to help owls and other wildlife. I directed them to their state wildlife commission to see what programs they had and they found a ton of things the state would help with.

Like anything else, there's good and bad ways to do things. People just need to become aware.