Well, it is that time of the year again. Sitting quietly, minding own business, suddenly a huge sharp penetrating bite on arm or leg or neck. Look around, the tiniest flies ever, must be 1mm across and almost invisible, but inflict one heck of a nasty nip. (And not a sting, nothing injected. Well, not by the fly).

Amazing OFSO as the Mrs. and I have the same issue at home in the backwoods, and beyond the hills, of Connecticut.

However, unlike your pests ours wait in ambush. In the morning, as soon as we open the front patio screen door, the pests pounce punctually. (what an eye-opener, to say the least.)

Failing that tactic, they await my arrival at my car where upon they initiate an overwatch attack. (Overwatch is an infantry tactic where a squad will attack "overwatched" by another, but stationary, squad.)

At night, should we dare to leave a porch/patio light on, they hover around there until one of us is stupid enough to open the door. (Even with they light off they still hover near any given door. Waiting.... waiting.... waiting..... lurking...lurking...lurking

To wit: I have decided the next time this happens I will initiate a counter-attack. The mother of all counter-attacks that is.
Armed with an aerosol can of bug spray, and my handy-dandy
cigarette lighter, I plan on engaging the brutes with chemical warfare supplanted by a flame thrower. I will toast them into oblivion. If the chemicals don't get 'em, the flames of hell will indeed.

Flaming Chemical Weapons Massacre in the Hills of Connecticut - Part I

Midges are attracted to Carbon dioxide
Stop breathing and they'll leave you alone

Just be happy you don't live in Scotland

Makes sense, Milo. We live in a house surrounded by forests. Do not trees give off carbon dioxide at night and oxygen during daylight hours? That would explain the pesky midges.

they're actually looking for animal breath, but you're right - trees do respire at night, rather than transpire

Transpire, respire and then Acer Aspire.

Auggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Midges are attracted to Carbon dioxide
Stop breathing and they'll leave you alone
Just be happy you don't live in Scotland
The West Coast is particularly bad. Up here our island is mercifully free from mosquitos, midges and other annoying beasties. No predators either so hens & ducks can be left out all the time.

Got those nasty biting tiny ones here. Only become visible when they're almost in your eye, which is what they're aiming for. Quick bite in the corner of the eye, then they're off and invisible again.

Just be happy you don't live in Scotland

I don't but am close enough that it makes little difference to the viciousness of them (Kielder Water is as bad as well).
They lurk happily around the fir tree by the garden gate, I've got a solution though, the tree will be going to the great wood-chipper in the sky in the not too distant future.

They creep down into Bowland in Lancashire as well, though nowhere near as badly, but still enough to bring you out in a rash of bites

Midges are attracted to Carbon dioxide
Stop breathing and they'll leave you alone

Just be happy you don't live in Scotland

I thought I had escaped them when I moved here, but I reckon the little buggers forwarded my DNA profile to the local mozzies!

It's drought or mozzies here. Not as bad as the bitey ones. Had those in Canyon Lake Tx. Never saw one, but looked like a semaphore sender on steroids.


You should all move to Frinton. We didn't allow things like that there. Seriously, can't remember being bitten once in 33 years.

I have the extra problem of not being able to use chemicals. Became allergic to a slew of things in my 60s.

I speak as one who isn't troubled by midges (even during many Scottish holidays and fishing trips to Kielder Water) though Mrs G-CPTN attracts them (and suffers their attacks).

Rivets

don't get too posh about living in Frinton - you still had malaria in those Essex marshes until the 1930's/40's

For years the Marines at Faslane who guard nuclear missiles and the submarines capable of firing them have looked for an answer.
Instead of using mosquito repellent issued by their unit, soldiers and workers at the base are buying Avon body lotion to repel midges on the West Coast.
The wonder cure is a bottle of dry oil body spray from Avon's Skin So Soft range.

From (and more at):- Avon's spray finds calling as midge repellent for Royal Marines - Top stories - Scotsman.com (http://www.scotsman.com/news/scottish-news/top-stories/avon-s-spray-finds-calling-as-midge-repellent-for-royal-marines-1-1403152)

I speak as one who isn't troubled by midges
Ex Kingston, Jamaica we'd a couple of kids on the flight deck, both British born ethnically African children of Jamaican immigrants.
They said that the mossies attacked them but not the Jamaican born relatives they'd been visiting.
My guess is that the locals were bitten just as much but, due to acclimatisation throughout their lives, their skin didn't react with the same histamine response.

The wonder cure is a bottle of dry oil body spray from Avon's Skin So Soft range.
"Hearts of oak are our ships,
Jolly tarts are our men"

It's a joke, boys ;)
Bas, ex TA, MN, RAF

In northern Canada we have an insect we call a deer fly. About the size of a housefly, but with kind of brownish-green wings. Camouflage probably. When they bite, they remove a piece of flesh and take it back to Mrs. Deer Fly and the kiddies, whereupon she sneers "Is that the best you can do, pencil dick?" He now comes back for a second piece of you, only now he's really, really po'd.

Swedish version of the bitey flies:
http://i45.tinypic.com/qp2dxl.jpg

They sting a bit....

We have something similar - the Horsefly or Cleg
Bites and takes blood, but also eats shit so bites always end up infected.
Used to be common as they hang around cattle, but modern veterinarian drugs seem to have reduced their numbers. (Ivermectin gets carried into cow dung and kills them off when they eat it). Text books will tell you they don't eat dung, just pollen - but I can assure you otherwise! - as can anyone who's lived in the countryside
I believe they have deerflies up in the Scottish hills, but I've never come across them knowingly
FYI you got the story slightly wrong -its the females that take the bite - they need a blood meal before they can produce eggs

At a recent agricultural show, I was standing near a pile of freshly-deposited horse-poo, which, although it was in a 27 acre field that is normally a rugby-ground and not where any animals are kept for at least a mile away, the dung was soon 'covered' in horseflies (the khaki ones). Heaven knows where they came from.

Flies have an incredible sense of smell.There are documented cases of flies finding a pig's corpse within 34 seconds of death.

Stayed in Winnipeg once for a couple of days at a friend's house. Wondered why they had screens every where and actually opened the garage remotely and drove in before exiting the car.

When I opened the back door the whole lawn rose up to see what was going on. A swarm of mosquitoes so thick you could barely see the fence.

Left Winnipeg, never to return but, ho, ho, my wife is there today on a cross country trip with my son who is posted to Trenton.

Aviation content. He got his wings last month, helicopters!

Vicious insects? Pah! Try a walk in the rainforest. . . :uhoh:

There are documented cases of flies finding a pig's corpse within 34 seconds of death.

My ex's family were faster than that when her mum died. The lady passed away at 0800 in Groote Schuur Hospital. We got the call at 0805 and by the time we got to the house, about half an hour later, the rest of the family had broken in and removed everything, like vultures, the only difference being that vultures do it for survival rather than greed.

then Acer Aspire.

Only maples do that.

Let me guess Tableview.

They lived in Mitchell's Plain?

:ok:

No, but you're not far off - Wetton. In those days that was a pretty downmarket area, not sure about now. (They were white (just)!)

Midges are attracted to Carbon dioxide
Stop breathing and they'll leave you alone
don't be so sure. They'll crawl inside to check there's none of those carbons left incidentally.

So the Southern Hemisphere does 'nt feel left out , man eating sandflies in NZ::E

Mitchell's Plain, eh? One was born in District 6. Not many Englishmen can say that.

The building in which I was born still stands, though it is no longer a Maternity Unit. Mam then took me home to the fisherman's cottage they rented in Paradise Road, Simon's Town. Its on the internet as a "holiday home" these days and you have to pay through the nose to stay there.

Mam was stung by a scorpion while we lived there, so we moved to Seaforth Road, with Boulder Beach at the bottom of the street. I wonder what the rent for that place would be today?

Blacksheep - we spent many a happy weekend at Boulders Beach during the 2 years we in CT - great place to snorkel.

Oh, and I never got bitten by flies there.

Boulders? Had great times there as a kid in the '60s and '70s. Spent all my time in the water with a speargun or scuttling about on the rocks peering into pools and crevices. Mum freaked when she found me wandering around with an octopus (this was around the time a RN matelot was killed just down the road at Seaforth by a blue ringed occy).

I still have the scar on my finger from one of the penguins at Boulders taking a peck at me. Vicious little buggers. Still, no flies on them .... trying to get the thread back on track!

Probably thought it was a fish finger. http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/evil.gif

Oh, for goodness' hake!

Just sing that ol' sole music....

Stop codding around. This is not the right plaice for that kind of thing.

Oh for Cod's hake, sharken your wits, stop whiting such pollocks and carping on about this.

The scar will magically disappear salmon chanted evening.

Turbot or not turbot, that is the question !

whereupon she sneers "Is that the best you can do, pencil dick?"

Ah Yes! The joys of language!

Many years ago one was in Atlanta, GA., discussing Heavy Legal and Financial Thoughts with good ol' boys from Lockheed Marietta.

Sated with such dry commons, together we essayed into darkest Atlanta to dine more richly, and homeward-bound were accosted by ladies of the evening.

One of our hosts did lead these sweet souls on a bit, a tad unkindly, it seemed to me, and sharp were the witty exchanges sent winging to and fro.

Ultimately one of our rascals let it be known, not subtly, to the spokeslady party of the second part that negotiations had now drawn to a close, sadly but in finality fruitlessly for the vendors.

Fruitlessly indeed, but the last word rested, as it always does, with the ladies, and I have long treasured her Parthian shot that rent the warm Suth'n air:

"Y'all go tah He', yo w'yte bo-yuh, wid yo' liddle pencil-peedah!"

That alone was worth the airfare.

Bitey bugs, them 'aint no bitey bugs! For the mac daddy of bitey bugs, i give you.............the tsetse fly. The AH-64 of the bug world. It can track you in all weather and time of day, homes into the soft skin (back of knees, neck, behind ears etc) and its bite feels like a red hot poker. They are also armor plated, so slapping it when it bites you just stuns it a bit, then it fly's away to plan another attack on you.

I must have been bitten by the bug to have kept reading this thread!:{

As CB said, the tsetse is the real deal. The only place they won't follow you is out into direct sunlight, so it becomes a contest of wills as to who can hold on the longest in 43 deg C heat. Slapping them will get you a moment of respite while the bugger shakes his head and realigns the gyros before tucking in again. They need to be trapped and deliberately squashed until things leak out (mainly blood) to ensure their demise. The little bastards are able to draw a great deal of blood once they begin chewing on one. Finding one inside your shirt, dining on a sensitive bit you're unable to reach while in flight, must surely count as an in flight hazard and be noted as such in the tech log. We won't even go into the nasty diseases they carry.