Posted on 06/23/2008 8:09:46 AM PDT by Phlap
Mainers call the black fly the state bird.
Residents and tourists have long steeled themselves against the flies' annual warm-weather onslaught, sometimes duct-taping pant legs and wearing screened hoods to keep the deceptively small bugs from delivering bloody bites or crawling into seemingly every body crevice.
But there are now more black flies in more places in Maine, and the reason may be surprising: It's the success of the environmental movement.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
“While it may not look fashionable, tuck pant legs into socks or boots and wear tight-fitting, long-sleeved shirts because the flies often crawl into snug regions of the body to feed”....
And call yourself a liberal and live with it....
They prefer to be called African-American flies...
“They’re going to try to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me.......and did I mention he’s black?”
But I sure wish Noah had swatted those two mosquitoes and black flies when he had the chance
Wow. I take 100mg/day of vitamin B1 (thiamin) and mosquitos don’t come near me. Might be worth a try for these guys.
We’ve got to make the environment clean for the black flies...
Save the black flies!
The little buggers have always been around these parts, but they have been worse than usual this year. Black Fly Season only lasts about a month, but it seems much longer when you’re out trying to cut the lawn and they’re swarming around you like iron filings drawn to a magnet. The worst part (aside from the nasty blistering bites they give you) is that they have a habit of flying right into your open eyes, nose and mouth. There’s a reason I swear more in June than any other month of the year.....
“flies of color”
We have those black flies here in NY too. I have found mega doses of the vitamin B complex really works to keep them from biting. They do not like the smell or taste of the B vitamins when they come out in your sweat. The first year I lived here they had a feeding frenzy on me, welts and scabs all over. The next season I started taken the B complex a few months earlier...I got bit only once.
That’s racist!
I think you meant: Flies of Color.
GMTA. Beat me by 29 seconds.
My mom was talking to her childhood friend up there last week and he said the same thing, he’s almost carried away by them every time he goes outside. He’s lived up there all his life but says there much worse this year. Are they cyclical, like many insects?
This sort of illustrates the countless benefits to all the cutting edge technology being developed to save the planet from ourselves.
Cutting edge, Space Age technologies like Wind Power.
The New Maine State Bird
Thanks to the environmental wacko lobby.
Points to both of you for identifying the more politically correct term.
Premier-in-waiting Obama applauds your efforts.
So...does I wins me a PBR?
LOL
I dunno about them getting any "worse" over the years. Having lived in Maine both "pre- and post-cleanup", I don't think I ever saw a dime's bit of difference. Except that over the years, I think that maybe they hang around longer. Old timers say they'd usually be gone by early summer, now it's not uncommon to see them in July/August.
Mainers build up a tolerance to them; folks from away are generally miserable.
The last time I went fishing up at Moosehead (late 90s), guy I was with wore a light-colored shirt and I couldn't tell what color it was, they were so bad.
Comical. The law of unintended consequences.
We live in the heart of blackfly country here in our part of Vermont. You just have to get used to it. After a few years, they don’t seem as bad as they did.
In fact, like true Vermonters, we even celebrate them. This here is from the next town over:
http://www.blackflyfestival.org/
In my experience, they’re not truly “cyclical” as with cicadas and locusts, for example. They do respond to weather conditions, however. More rain during the spring and/or snow cover during the winter = more black flies. That’s certainly the case this year - we had snow on the ground continuously from December 1st until about April 10th. They also tend to disappear as soon as the temperature gets above 90 degrees for the first time.
There is another fly here in South Jersey that I am really allergic too. It has yellowish color wings. When one of those b@st@rds bite me I swell up like a balloon.
I have a bottle of it in my closet from the last time I visited. It stinks, but I'll take it over getting eaten up every day of the week.
I remember in the 1950's when they use to come around and spray DDT with this huge truck.
They would let the neighborhood know ahead of time so parents could get the laundry off the lines, and close the windows of the house.
The kids in the neighborhood had a whole different view of the whole thing.
I remember lots of kids on bikes would follow behind the truck in the cloud of DDT.
Gradually my visits to the West Branch region have move later in the year to avoid the slaps, curses and scolding from my fishing partner and wife of way more than forty years. The maxim “IF MOMMA AIN’T HAPPY, AIN’T NOBODY HAPPY” is the reason. Look Mainer do-gooders the longet I have to wait befor I get to come down east, the more of my filthy lucre you pass up.
OBTW, down here in the GSMNP and nearby environs we use to be plagued by a nearly microscopic G-gnat called a “no-seeum”. For some reason they are now extinct in our area. Must have been the acid rain caused by the “gummit power plants” (TVA) down past Knoxville. Every cloud has a silver lining if you look hard enough.
See ya in mid-July at the North Woods Trading Post.
Caddis
...so the environmentalist attempt to preserve the environment is actually altering it. Got it....
I hope you heard about the recall on that stuff.
So do I - and mosquitoes eat me alive. It ain’t the thiamin.
There were guys who fell into vats of DDT in the 50s who are still walking around, one guy who used to eat the stuff to demonstrate its safety to humans, and everybody who survived the nazi death camps was sprayed with the stuff to get rid of lice and other parasites; none of them died from DDT exposure. A friend of mine studied under Heinz Meng himself and tells me that Meng described the entire case against DDT as BS and claimed it had no effect on any kind of birds or their eggs. Everything we’ve ever been told about DDT is BS. DDT is a legitimate candidate for greatest thing the white man ever invented and it would solve the black fly problem in a single day.
That case was challenged many times and now that DDT has been banned, a field test or even a lab test is out of the question.
Suffice it to say that one man’s poison...
Perfect example of how sick these enviro-whackos are...
No See’ums are also know as “flying teeth”.
As I noted, the best expert on falconry we've ever had is on record to the effect of calling that claim a bunch of BS.
A very reasonable idea, and one used for mosquitoes, is to breed and release a cloud of dragonflies.
Dragonflies are voracious predators of other insects and will clear an area very quickly. They also make a very quiet clicking sound that other insects are terrified of.
In Canada, they tried this in a park infested with mosquitoes, just before a major outdoor concert. In just a few days, the mosquitoes were completely gone.
The only thing to figure out is how many dragonflies per acre you need.
The basic reality about falcons is that when people stopped shooting them for shotgun practice, they came back.
Exactly, farmers use to shoot them to keep them from eating their chickens and other farm animals. Hunters shot them for sport to keep them from killing and eating rabbits, squirrels, and game birds.
It sure sounds like the same fly. Nasty little buggers.
There is another fly here in South Jersey that I am really allergic too. It has yellowish color wings. When one of those b@st@rds bite me I swell up like a balloon.
Hmm. I don't think I've ever seen one like that here. I know we have the green-heads that swarm when the breeze comes off the bay during the summer months, and those things are just evil. But are you sure the bug that's biting you isn't some sort of small bee?
When they lit on you that almost immediately take a nip out of ya.
They sting like the dickens.
Note to self...Maine off vacation list.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_fly
Those buggers can hurt like the dickens. Worse than pine flies, and I swell up for a couple days wherever the point of contact is.
The only two states I haven’t visited yet are Louisiana and Maine. I always figured it was because they were a bit out of the way - maybe subconsiously there is another reason. (Although the black flies in Northern Minnesota can drive a person nuts.)
They’re terrible that’s for sure. They are attracted by movement...I used to have to go to the mailbox in my truck to avoid them. I noticed that they attacked the truck when it was moving...when it stopped moving, they disipated....they’d come screaming back when I turned on the windshield wiper blades. LOL.
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