When I was a kid, I remember seeing clouds of them in the school field when we went out to play. There used to be so many that they would cover your windshield. For the last few years I have hardly seen any around. Today, I only saw a single solitary bug lazily flying through the air.
I suspect the rapidly changing climate is the cause but, I guess I feel a bit of shock at realizing and reflecting on the fact that this is happening right at home.
The climate, and also all the habitat & topsoil loss, and pesticide washoff, and the microplastics, and the invasive predators, plants, and diseases. Can't have a mass extiction by just cracking one egg.
It's so strange seeing it happen in real time. I'm now in a similar position to the Americans who asked over a century and a half ago, "Where did the big flocks of Passenger Pigeons go?" History, something I always read about and associated with print in books, is happening right in front of me in my locality, and is unfolding in a negative trajectory. I feel silently horrified by it.