Monday, June 16, 2014

RAIN... and flies

We got big rains Saturday night... like upwards of 3 inches! Thankfully, it came without storminess. Everything is certainly looking lush right now.


For the last couple of weeks, we've had swarms of these little flies, which I believe Grandpa said are seed corn maggot flies (we have them every year). They're usually thickest in the grass, bushes and evergreen trees. Since we have a lot of evergreen trees to mow around, I've been thankful that I've been able to breathe through my nose lately (sometimes I'm not, due to allergies), or I'd have had plenty of flies in my mouth. Yuck.

I guess the flies didn't like all the rain. There have normally been a few in the oriole feeder, but nothing like there were yesterday morning... look!


That grape jelly is covered solid with them. Poor birds!


Even the finch feeder was covered with them:


I'll be glad when their season passes. Hopefully it'll be soon. At least they don't bite or anything... they're just annoying.

3 comments:

Mark said...

Wow! that's more than rain than we have had in the last 9 months. So the next thing is you get to mow lawn and chase the little flies. What I miss most about Minnesota is that when it rains there is not one little area that is not green every thing and every where is green. When you live in the a desert it is only green if it is watered the rest is all dead and brown. When I come home I get sensory overload from all the green. But I don't miss the mosquitos that come after the rain. Also love the moon shots from the post before. As always awesome pictures!

happyone said...

There is SO MANY of them. Like you said though at least they don't bite!!!
Hope they're gone soon.

Grandma G said...

Thanks, Mark! I wish I could've sent you the MORE RAIN we got today. Wait'll you see the lake on tomorrow's post! At least I got it mowed in between. Well, most of it... I got rained out. Yes, it should definitely be a good year for mosquitoes. :(

The number of flies seemed to be less when I mowed today. Maybe they drowned. I think they're usually only around for 2-3 weeks anyway, though, so their time is about up.