As the weather is set to remain unstable, 30 May was the only day with acceptable weather conditions, with a partly cloudy sky, weak to moderate winds and temperatures already crossing the 20°C mark at 10:31 AM.
There has been a relatively consistent pattern in ever May so far, in which all insect population drastically decline or even disappear entirely, regardless of whether those species produce several generations over a season or just one. I usually treat the sudden disappearance of P. bellargus as a starting point of this "break", though this year this radical decline may be made worse by the sheer dominance of less than a handful of grasses that have started to dominate vast parts of all of my main zones. Zone I and the hay field in Z II, which used to host few nectar plants last year, pretty much have turned into large grass fields consisting of nothing but tall meadow grasses and orchard grass. Even without my pollen allergy, I would have skipped Z I and 2/3 of Zone II due to the height of the grasses almost reaching mine, making the few spots with less grasses inaccessible and unattractive to many insects.
Because of this, the first appearance of A. urticae in one of my main zones since late-2023 largely is being overshadowed. It was seen resting next to the wheat field in Z III but later made its way farther north in search for suitable nectar plants, which have been almost entirely absent in my village for the same reason my main zones largely have become void of flowers.
By now I'm convinced that my town is doing this intentionally, as I once caught them mowing an area between "Mixed Field" and Zone I where they only removed the buttercup patches but left every tall grass patch untouched. The likely reason for this may be to prevent future construction work or agricultural expansions from being delayed or outright rejected due to our conservation laws, only allowing certain species to exist within an area of moderate interest to our local tourism industry (which, coincidentally, yields poor crop quality and is harder to access with huge tractors). There has been a recent announcement in which my municipality had to admit illegal activity in regards to a proposed new suburbian neighborhood, having skipped all environmental checks whilst already having sold the property (currently still an agricultural field usually covered in sun flowers and various "wheats") to dozens of future home owners – an this without ever making those offers public, in fact local politicians split and sold this property among their own families and peers without anyone, not even the current owner, being fully aware of it and no sign even being put on the spot to market this "Erschließung". I remain in talks with Odrich Jr., owner of the pond in Z III, and he also is convinced that "they only got dollar signs in their eyes" and how they would converted his pond into yet-another-monoculture if it weren't for him. Sadly, environmental topics have been treated like annoyances to downright hostility for decades by most people from my area, hence the vast amount of species can only be encountered in areas of little interest to them.