Hot, Wet Year Brings Something New To UK - Clouds Of Mosquitoes - Independent

[hatrack]

One of the pleasures of an English summer evening is being able to sit in the garden with a bottle of rosé and a bowl of olives and listen to the swifts as they wheel screeching about the houses at sunset. Not any more. This summer a new sound is set to ruin the idyllic scene. The shoulder-hunching whine of a million mosquitoes is heading our way.

In a normal year, England is relatively insect-free in summer. One of the advantages of holidaying within these shores is that there is no need to pack the mosquito nets, wasp killer or sting remedies that are de rigeur for travel abroad. But this year is not a normal year. Met Office forecasts of a heatwave in August to follow the exceptionally wet start to the summer come with a bite. Scientists are predicting that weather conditions in the UK could be "extremely conducive" to the spread of the most unwelcome of guests - the parasite-infested mosquito.

From Norfolk to north Wales and London to south Devon, holidaymakers have begun to itch, scratch and complain about the insects. A quiet evening fishing beside a country stream has become a battle with clouds of biting mozzies. Unusually high rainfall during May, June and July has left the country strewn with pools of still, stagnant water that are ideal breeding grounds for mosquito larvae. Long, hot days and warm, humid nights over the next month, if the forecast proves accurate, will encourage the movement of the hatched eggs, of which there could be millions more than is standard in the UK.

Professor Chris Curtis of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said: "Mosquitoes need still water by day and warm air by night. We've had a lot of rain this year and, as temperatures rise the infectious parasites carried by mosquitoes will thrive". He added that sustained high temperatures over August made it "very likely" that mosquito numbers will be "markedly higher than they've been for years".

EDIT

http://www.ecoearth.info/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=81689

[slackmaster]

1. England needs more bats

[BonnieJW]

2. You are exactly right.

In the US, people build bird houses specifically for marlins, which are big mosquito eaters. But bats are VORACIOUS mosquito eaters. People should build bat houses in their yards and watch the bugs disappear.