Insects are hanging on in Buckinghamshire

SIR – Michael Groom (Letters, August 22) asks “Where have all the insects gone?” They have gone to Marlow.

I know this because my new white car is covered in them every morning. Most of them are dead but still tenaciously clinging to the paintwork and windows. Martyn Holland

Marlow, Buckinghamshire

SIR – Richard Acland (Letters, August 23) was told by an ornithologist that insecticides had wiped out insect life.

A deeper problem is the use of herbicides, fungicides and cultivation practices that militate against all plants apart from monoculture crops.

In the Sixties I cycled beside cereal fields in North Wales seeing and hearing larks, yellow wagtails, linnets, yellowhammers and corn buntings all the time. Admittedly, the crops had to compete with many weeds.

Now I see much larger fields with dense, clean crops. The populations of all these birds have plummeted. Cereal yields are up several-fold, but the weeds and everything that fed on the crops are restricted to isolated corners or designated “nature” reserves. R Allan Reese

Forston, Dorset

SIR – Flies do not get squashed on windscreens so much because windscreens are better engineered. Today they are shaped to deflect the air the insects are in, so the insects are missing the glass. Sue Doughty

Twyford, Berkshire