They're Baaack
The black flies came early this year. The adage has been Mother’s Day through Father’s Day, but I think they were here right after Easter. We live in the woods by the water, prime conditions for the little bloodsuckers.
It is nearly June and just about everyone is back. Holdouts are the dragonflies and bats whom we are particularly eager to have return because they will come between us and the black flies. But it has been on and off cold—again in the thirties tonight—which is not good for bats. We wait to see if the colony of them will move into the bat house we hung over the loose garage siding we sealed with steel wool last fall.
The black flies came early this year. The adage has been Mother’s Day through Father’s Day, but I think they were here right after Easter. We live in the woods by the water, prime conditions for the little bloodsuckers. The past couple of weeks have been good for watching them swarm outside our windows. They fill the air like sparks from a fire, dancing and zigzagging. You would not notice a few of them or even two dozen, but there are hundreds. Not enough to call it a cloud, but enough to want to push your way through using your arms, as along a busy sidewalk. And, of course, they surround you again with your very next step.
I wonder about the ones that hover over our back porch. Are they waiting for us to come outside? It could be a while. We are having lunch. In the meantime, would it not be more profitable for them to head to the pond or deeper into the woods? Obviously, it is a numbers game: as a species, they survive en mass. They are everywhere. Still, what has caused this bunch to be assigned to our porch? Why do they hang around the window? They would have better luck coaxing us outdoors if they disappeared for a while. Run and hide.
Like their cousin the tick. (Probably not really a cousin.) I have never seen a tick in the wild, have you? This time of year, I spend hours outside, wading through bramble, pruning bushes, mowing lawns, digging in the garden. I am always on the lookout for ticks. Never see them. Not until we are sitting down later in the day, showered, clean clothes, flip flops on our feet, admiring our handiwork in the yard. That is when we are suddenly conscious that something is stealthy wriggling up our shin beneath the pant leg.
Which leads to creepy-crawly syndrome, a spring affliction in this part of the world. Almost everyone I know suffers from this debilitating condition at some point during the season. I have it now. We had people for dinner last night, during which I excused myself to duck into the bedroom and remove my shirt to see if there was a tick going up my back. (There was not.) Any of them, when they said they needed to use the restroom, could have instead been partly disrobing to check for bugs. Gorillas sit in circles picking insects off each other with their dexterous fingers. It nearly comes to that here at this time of year in our book clubs, bridge groups, and morning coffee clutches so distracted are we by the sense ticks might be scampering up our neck to the relative safety of the hairline.
The first moth of the season has attached itself to the screen over the kitchen sink where the lights are on most often during the day. It is motionless. In another month or so an army of them will camp next to the outdoor light by the kitchen door. As we enter and exit, they will scatter and fly around our heads, which Marcia cannot stand. She turns the light off to encourage them to depart and bangs on the screen, then sends me out ahead. I do not mind moths except for the ones that get into the bedroom at night and flutter underneath the lampshade while I am trying to read. It has to be an intense arcade experience for a moth to find itself in that situation. A bit like cage motorcycle riding. Glaringly bright while doing death-defying laps above a white-hot bulb. Crazy.
Our new puppy, Huckleberry, was on the ground near the corner of the garage earlier this week intent on something between his outstretched front paws, occasionally getting his nose in close and digging around. It was carpenter ants, a new discovery for him and an unhappy one for me. A bucket line of them from the ground to someplace under the roof line. They have not been in evidence since, but sympathetic as I try to be to all creatures great and very small, I called the pest company, which will be here next week.
I did, however, rescue a black beetle from Huck yesterday. Another new discovery for him, which he was flipping onto its back with his tongue, pinching it between his front lips, rolling it around in his mouth, but choosing not to eat it, which was good.
“We’re going to put this over here,” I said, bringing it to the edge of the woods, and sending it down the slope.
Did you know, according to Insectidentification.org, that if every member of the animal kingdom were lined up, every fourth one would belong to a category of beetle? Just as well to treat them with respect.
Which reminds me of a favorite poem:
FORGIVEN
By A.A.Milne
I found a little beetle; so that Beetle was his name,
And I called him Alexander and he answered just the same.
I put him in a match-box, and I kept him all the day ...
And Nanny let my beetle out -
Yes, Nanny let my beetle out -
She went and let my beetle out -
And Beetle ran away.
She said she didn't mean it, and I never said she did,
She said she wanted matches and she just took off the lid,
She said that she was sorry, but it's difficult to catch
An excited sort of beetle you've mistaken for a match.
She said that she was sorry, and I really mustn't mind,
As there's lots and lots of beetles which she's certain we could find,
If we looked about the garden for the holes where beetles hid -
And we'd get another match-box and write BEETLE on the lid.
We went to all the places which a beetle might be near,
And we made the sort of noises which a beetle likes to hear,
And I saw a kind of something, and I gave a sort of shout:
"A beetle-house and Alexander Beetle coming out!"
It was Alexander Beetle I'm as certain as can be,
And he had a sort of look as if he thought it must be Me,
And he had a sort of look as if he thought he ought to say:
"I'm very very sorry that I tried to run away."
And Nanny's very sorry too for you-know-what-she-did,
And she's writing ALEXANDER very blackly on the lid,
So Nan and Me are friends, because it's difficult to catch
An excited Alexander you've mistaken for a match.