No-see-ums, Blackflies and Deer Flies

Biting midge or "no-see-um".

Black fly up close and personal.

A deer fly sitting down to eat.

Deer fly after having eaten (burp!).

What well dressed Vermonters are wearing these days. (In a sad note, the gentleman modeling this outfit died on a hiking trip from black fly and deer fly bites he received on his hands.)

We pride ourselves up here in Vermont on living in something of a bucolic paradise. Compared to other areas of the country we are quite spoiled as there are no fire ants, poisonous snakes, scorpions, horse flies, alligators or tarantulas. Until recently there were no ticks or fleas either although that is changing. Still, I've never gotten a tick in Vermont and never found one on our dogs. We've never had a problem with flea control either, on me or on the dogs. All of these entymological and reptilian advantages come thanks to our brutally long and cold Winters. So even at the cosmic level there is no free lunch. And in this regard our "lunch" is even more costly than it seems at first blush. For if we have none of these other pests, we do have a few of our own. We have, for example, no-see-ums which are biting midges. They live up to their name. You can't see em' and they can really bite. We have black flies, a miniature version of the deer fly which we also have. The deer fly is a miniature version of the horse fly. We don't have horse flies, generously leaving that particular insect pest to our neighbors in the South. As with horse flies, black flies and deer flies (also known as yellow flies) have a proboscis with multiple barbs that they plunge into your skin, the better to drink your blood. Being barbed, when the proboscis is removed it causes a fair amount of pain and leaves an ugly welt about the size of a golf ball. O.K., I'm exaggerating, but they do leave big welts. The welts itch painfully for about 8 hours or until you bleed to death from scratching. Black flies and yellow flies need water, like a pond or a river, to breed. That means we are particularly well served here on the old homestead what with our river and our pond. And I thought nothing could make me look favorably at mosquitoes.

p.s. I forgot to mention that only the females of these different species drink blood.