We’re having a few warm days here, what we used to call Indian summer. (I always thought that was because of the bright colors, because we girls had a kit for making Indian headdresses when we were kids: lotsa beads, and those fluffy dyed-bright-yellow feathers…cleaning out one of the attics recently , I found one of those kits, the feathers disintegrated as I moved the box, and floated up my nose….well but who cares about that?)
I’m talkin’ October insects here.
All summer, when I went into the woods to mark trails, the bugs were ON me. Only my hands were available, since, after the first time, I wore a mosquito net hat, taking perverse satisfaction in watching the bugs batter the netting. But I had to keep my hands bare to deal with the trail tape, and the minute my fingers were occupied they landed and bit. My hands itched all night.
Today, though, in the temporarily restored warmth of the
afternoon, I saw a few clouds of insects haloed by the afternoon sun, golden like tiny Quidditch snitches. But they weren’t interested in ME. They were, in fact, bouncing up and down like yo-yos on a string, like balls kept in motion by a juggler!
It’s like they were zombies reanimated by the warmth, shocked into upward motion then falling again. In summer, the swarm would’ve come for me; now, in October, it just moved down the field, always bouncing jerkily like a buncha Jack-in-the-boxes.
What’s with this, dear polymaths, do any of you know?
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Though I am no polymath (and am, like you, in awe of those here who are), I heard long ago that in autumn house flies get infected with a fungus, which makes them behave crazily. I looked it up and maybe it is Entomophthora muscae. Perhaps it is the same phenomenon with the bugs you saw?
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The novelty of these summers is a challenge for organisms that have evolved in a different climate, and this summer has been especially different:
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I looked that up. Fascinating!
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