We’re having a bumper Summer season. Wonderful rains cause
all the rivulets to gush and gurgle like they haven’t for three consecutive seasons.
It is lush and green and simply gorgeous everywhere around us. Cattle shine
like polished stones where they lie ruminating in the pastures amongst
wildflowers and frolicking calves. It’s the way I’ve always imagined heaven
would look like.
And we have swallows. Hundreds of tiny fighter pilots that
descend on us every morning, swooping and diving just above the lawn.
We also have flies. Hordes of them, caused by a combination
of factors: a cattle feeding lot that was recently started close by, very high
temperatures and all this rain.
We’re doing everything we can to handle the problem without resorting
to chemical means: burners with peppermint and citronella oil work well to
repel the pesky things inside our home. Outside we have bags of flybait that
fill up alarmingly quickly. But still, it is not enough. Walking or sitting outside
is very unpleasant and nothing so irritates as one lazy fly that singles you
out come dawn as you’re trying to squeeze in another couple of minutes of
sleep.
So we were seriously contemplating pulling out the big guns.
Enter the swallows. At first only a few showed up but soon the news spread and
they arrived in full force. It is a sight to behold! They seem largely
oblivious to us walking among them as they hunt and it is magical to have them
so close, hearing the small clicks as they connect with a fly.
Maybe this will help a little, we thought, and took a random
guess: if there’s a 100 swallows and each of them catches a 100 flies per day,
that would make it 10 000 less flies per day. Not bad at all! We should be
seeing the bait bags fill up less quickly.
Then I googled it. We were way too conservative. A barn
swallow can catch up to 60 insects per hour, which makes it 850 a day, one
source claims. Times a 100 swallows makes it 85 000 less flies per day!
As I walk to the studio, the flies and the swallows about
me, I marvel at the conflicting nature of things. I honestly can’t stand the
flies, but I just love the swallows. And because of the flies, the swallows
came. Maybe there’s a pattern here?
Matilda
Photo credit: Roger Hunt
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