The News from Kenabeek

I guess no description of the beauties of a northern autumn is complete without noting that the cluster flies are back. They look like ordinary house flies but behave quite differently. They are not omnivores, like common house files, but carnivores, feeding on worms and caterpillars, and the story is that they were introduced to the north by either lumber companies or the Ministry of Natural Resources, in the hope that they would attack spruce budworm, which was damaging to lumber interests.

I don’t know the effect on the spruce budworm, but the effect on residents, at least when they live “in the bush” as we do, is that the house periodically becomes home, temporarily, to a whole bunch of flies. Apparently when they are in the larval state they are hair-like worm type things, which can get into a house wherever there’s a crack, however small. Once it has cooled off outside, and the innocent home dweller puts on the heat, so that the house is noticeably warmer than outdoors, the larvae think it’s spring already and start hatching out indoors. All they do is buzz on the windows, trying to get out, but when there’s lots it’s quite annoying.

When I first moved here I was the kind of person who would let out any insect that got into the house. After 14 years in the north, I still let spiders out, when possible, but I gleefully swat cluster flies. (Rationalization: it’s really mercy killing, since they would otherwise buzz on the window until they died of starvation – there being no caterpillars in the house. And I don’t intend to change that!)

The flies will continue to be a mild, nuisance-level problem throughout the winter. In the spring when it gets warm, they start hatching out outdoors, in large numbers, and although they are invaders, which attack earthworms if they can get them, I have not yet begun trying to kill them outdoors.

After that point, there are no flies indoors. Outdoors – well, once it’s warm there are LOTS of bugs, and I begin reminding myself that a healthy insect population is part of a healthy environment, and that, for all I know, humans’ most important role in the larger picture is to provide food for insects!

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