A bumper year for bugs: as the world warms up, insects are moving northwards

Filed by Terra Bloom

Britain has seen an explosion of migrating insects – in some cases from as far as northern Africa It was a stifling evening in July and Matt Phelps was out for a stroll, when a piercing, whirring noise stopped him in his tracks. As an ecologist, Phelps knows his fauna – and he could think of no UK creature that could emit such a sound.“It was like the classic sound effect of a cricket in a film, a beeping sort of little trilling sound,” said Phelps, who works at Knepp Estate in West Sussex. He r