Mike Rossander wrote: "There may be fewer bugs than there used to but 
the Windshield Test is
a very unreliable measure of that hypothesis."

In the first half of April 2011 I was on a 'Battlefield Tour' with the
Royal British Legion and visited the invasion beaches of D Day 1944. I
had the honour to walk up a beach in company with a chap who had last 
trod
there on D Day, clearing mines so the tanks could be landed.  (My Dad
went in on D Day + 4). While we were there, the first swallows were
leaving France and heading for England.

We were staying in Bayeaux, a part of Normandy where they are proud of
their ciders, their Calvados, and their cheeses, well-flavoured
because, in part, their cows feed in fields with lots of weeds, not
just grass, grass grass.  There are lots of small fields, hedgerows,
and a variety of crops.

At the end of our stay, we left by coach for the Channel Tunnel. About
half way there, the coach driver used the opportunity at a Motorway
service station to use a mop and bucket to clean the windscreen which
was almost opaque with splattered insects.  The journey continued
eastwards for roughly an equivalent time/distance to the tunnel but the
landscape had altered to large fields, few hedges and little variety in
vegetation. The driver did clean the windscreen again after that leg
but it was hardly necessary.  We headed north,when we emerged from the
Tunnel, heading for Cambridge in the east of England where agriculture
is industrial. This time, after a similar distance, the driver didn't
bother as there was no need.

So, on that day, we had the same windshield moving at a similar speed,
for similar distances; the main variables being the passage of time and
the landscape. If anybody would like to do a controlled experiment,
they could hire 2 coaches to do the same journey on the same day in
opposite directions, keeping the contents of windscreen cleanings for
later analysis.

In July the same year, prior to attending the annual FIBKA Summer
School at Gormanston in Ireland, I spent a couple of days staying with
friends in their country cottage near Williamstown in County Galway in
the west of Ireland.  There they have horses, cattle, bogs and plenty
of wild flowers.  I saw more swallows in that 2 days than I did in the
whole of that summer in England!

Chris

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