THE LAST DAY of JUNE, and SOME UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Today is another cool day. The temp is barely 19C/66F, and there's a stiff breeze into the bargain. Not that I mind, every day we don't swelter here is one day to the good, but still, I wonder - where the fishflies (Mayflies) are. Here it is, the last day of June, and other than a few hundred of them scattered over a couple of weeks, we're still waiting. And by we, I mostly mean the birds and fish and countless other small creatures who depend on nature's outrageous abundance of these winged protein packets. Where are the teeming hordes that coat the buildings and dim the nighttime signs in town? The annoying midges certainly came on time, and in the expected numbers, but what about the elegant, graceful Mayfiles?

Where are the wind-piled drifts of their short-lived fallen bodies in the parking lots? Why aren't they here in mind-stunning numbers like they do every summer in early-to-mid June? Are they coming late, or not at all? This past winter, we had more cold weather, and much more snow, than I recall from my mere four years of living here, and long-timers confirm it was a bad one, for this area. I remember the long hard freezes I experienced in Alberta always had farmers and ranchers rejoicing because the prolonged deep cold meant a reduction in the grasshopper and other pest populations. I wonder if that's going to happen here. Even if the fishflies do finally arrive, what about my personal favorites, the crickets and the fireflies?


It's already getting late in the season. I've seen discarded eggshells from the second brood of birds, and loose molted feathers stuck at angles in the lawn, like tiny quill pens. Today I put on my jacket and went out for a windy walk in the yard, and stopped to contemplate of the side of my neighbor's house, by the old trellis, where last fall I watched dozens of crickets burying their eggs in the sandy soil. Are you okay down there? I silently asked. Will there be choruses of crickets later this summer? And when the corn is shoulder high again, will there be myriad fireflies rising up from among the stalks to dance against the stars on hot summer nights? Only time and temperature will tell.

GET READY, HERE THEY COME!

Along the north shore, the first wave of summer bugs has arrived. Before they're done, we'll see their number increase to the many MANY millions. The first to arrive are called midges - although there are quite a few insects around here that are smaller. It seems any small bug can be a midge. Except for the Mayflies. They are called "fishflies." But some locals call midges fishflies, too. The bottom line is: identifying small annoying insects on the lake in not an exact science.

Whatever their taxonomic name might be, the current midges are about a half-inch long, have splayed stance reminiscent of a water strider, bushy antennae like a moth, and they whine like mosquitoes. Their only saving grace is that they don't actually bite - but they do like to get caught in your hair, preferably right beside your ear, so the not-biting thing doesn't really get a chance to sink in. The standard summer gesture around here is walking around fanning your hand in front of your face like you just smelled something bad. You're really just trying to keep from inhaling or eating a midge. Birds, on the other hand, love to eat midges. Starling and grackles work the lawns, dipping and nipping until they have huge midge pom-poms in their beaks, some almost as big as their heads! Then they fly off to stuff the midge-poms into the gaping mouth of some hungry baby. As often as this happens, it doesn't make eve a sliver of a dent in the midge population. And in a short while, when they arrive in full force, the white sides of my house and garage will turn gray with densely-packed (excuse me, I have to rub my face and hair!) midges. In the heat of summer, they form huge clouds high in the twilight. Their collective hum is like some strange background noise left over from the Big Bang; it's very cosmic-sounding! You can even hear the hum indoors if you're standing by an open window!

Last night, I went to the porch to watch the Victoria Day fireworks along the lakeshore, and against the fading light, I watched a tiny bat, working the night shift, busily honing in on any night flying midges. But no matter how many bats and birds and other predators there are, they will still come - the midges and fishflies and their ilk. They might be small but they outnumber the stars!



Photos: 1) a midge, 2) last light

IF IT’S JUNE, THEY MUST BE…MAYFLIES!

When I was growing up in Michigan, we always referred to those rather elegant fork-tailed cellophane-winged bugs of early summer as “fishflies.” (Of course, the whole time I lived in Alberta, I didn’t refer to them at all.) Now that I live here in Leamington, with Lake Erie literally at the foot of my backyard, fishflies are back in my life again. Only this time, I am learning that practically everyone in town calls them “Mayflies.” It’s one of those strange quirks of English, you know, like those emails you get that say Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?

Every summer they come, wave after wave of them, up from the larval depths of the Lake, making their way ashore with or without the breeze, covering every surface (buildings, trees, cars, ball caps, T-shirts) available. And woe to anyone who leaves their porchlight on! You’ll see people picking them off each other’s clothes like grooming apes (minus the snacking part, of course). As the days wear on, you begin to see (and occasionally are forced to walk crunchily across) layers of the dead and failing. Parking lot asphalt gets stained brown in patches; smelly beige drifts accumulate in corners.

Don’t get me wrong; I love fishflies. They are my idea of a beautiful concept, as far as insects are concerned. They are lovely to look at, as if they were designed by some Japanese master calligrapher. If I’m correct about their anatomy and physiology, they have no working mouths, so for the duration of their short lives they don’t even eat – and therefore don’t bite. They emerge simply to mate and die, and along the way, at least several googol of them are eaten by other species, even though it makes no discernable dent in their numbers. Fishflies are in the food chain, but not of it. And unlike the other insect hordes that precede them by a few weeks, the non-biting midges, they make no sound. The midges, on the other hand, make a loud buzzy whine like mosquitoes wielding tiny chain saws. Equally huge clouds of them form in the evenings just above head level, and recede upwards to infinity, making a background noise that at first goes unnoticed, then gradually works its way into your awareness. What is that? Something wrong with the neighbor’s dryer? Someone down the road using a weed trimmer? Maybe a distant speedboat in trouble? No, it’s just midges. It won’t matter that you know intellectually that they are harmless; that annoying high-pitched mosquito-y song triggers a deep-seated reflex. With the fishflies, you can relax. Just get someone in the parking lot to check your back before you get in your car.

So, that is how it is in Leamington in June. And the moment we moved into July, their numbers drastically crashed. Soon you’ll look in vain (but with relief) to find a Mayfly. And yes, in case you were wondering, the June bugs come out in May.

Fishfly photo, D. Godin
Junebug photo Wikimedia Commons