Summer World_ A Season of Bounty - Bernd Heinrich [63]
A friend, a guide in Maine, once entertained a couple of summer “sportsmen” from New Jersey who had never encountered midges before. He told me of one memorable incident with them. The party of three arrived at dusk at their bucolic, Edenic campsite deep in the Maine woods. As they were unpacking and getting set up, the sportsmen began to scratch. Then, suddenly realizing that they were under attack, they jumped up and went “literally crazy,” as my friend put it. They eventually ran off into the woods, trying to escape their tormentors. Unlike the superfast tabanids, which not even a deer can outrun, no-see-ums can be outrun by a reasonably fit man. But the problem is that there is no place to run to, because they are everywhere.
Smoke. DEET. Running. Nothing worked to diminish the sportsmen’s pain. Even sooner than anticipated, they resorted to trying to distract themselves with their precious stock of beer. However, the night was hot and muggy and the midge onslaught was long; their beer supply ran short. After that my friend had to spend the night with his guests in their truck, driving back and forth on a bumpy road through the forest to create a cooling breeze that would blow the midges off. It worked, until their gasoline ran low. Drained in more ways than one, the summer vacationers sped back to New Jersey in the morning.
Well, at least in New England nobody has to pay homage to botflies. These are nonbiting flies, but they can be even more bothersome than the blood specialists—especially for caribou in the arctic. The large botflies bother caribou to distraction by flying up their nostrils to deposit, not eggs, but live maggots that will burrow in and wander around in the body before lodging under the skin to grow there to adulthood. When the maggots are well fed and fully grown they pop out of the caribou’s skin to pupate on the ground. In winter, on a freshly skinned caribou hide, I have seen dozens of large white welts, each containing a big botfly maggot. I have also seen botflies on skinned mice and chipmunks in Maine; relative to the size of their hosts, one of these maggots would be as big as a woodchuck to us.
I’ve learned a few things from flies. I’ve learned that it’s unproductive to swat gnats. I’ve learned that it’s a good idea to look at flies carefully, to distinguish the bothersome from the benign. The good ones, for me, are those who dance for their own pleasure. I do not disdain those who suck my blood so that that they can lay their own precious eggs; they are just programmed that way. It’s pointless to try to reason them out of it. It’s better to take hits without flinching, and to develop an immunity to the toxins.
Aside from that, flies give me hope. They also inspire others, as I learned from a bumper sticker that made my day a little over a year ago. It said in bold black letters: “Save the Blackfly.” I trailed behind the car with the sticker for about twenty miles before it finally pulled over in Plainsfield, Vermont. I pulled in right behind. I could now read the fine print at the bottom of the sticker. It said: “Maine Blackfly Breeders Association.” I wanted to belong, knowing that blackflies effectively do more to fulfill the promise of the well-known state slogan to “Keep Maine green” than anything government ever would or could do to keep “development” at bay. But as I walked over to introduce myself to the gentleman in the car, he stepped on the gas pedal and quickly drove off.
14
The Hummingbird and the Woodpecker
14 April 2006. I AM UP AT SIX AM, RISING WITH THE SUN and beating it only slightly. Perfect timing, because now is when the action is. The sapsuckers have just returned, and one has found the aluminum ladder I had put up only yesterday afternoon by the shed at our house in Vermont. He is drumming on it—“rat-tatatattat-tat” over and over again. Three more male sapsuckers came to the ladder as well and I wondered if they would join in, but they chased each other instead and then all three left. One came back to the ladder several times later to drum