Midges and Storms

After many weeks of no rain and pretty good weather the inevitable June scourge arrived: the Dreaded Midge.  Today, however, there will be no midges. Storm force winds blew last night and midges definitely don't like that.

It reminded me that many years ago I blogged about the Scottish midge and I decided that it was about time I did it again.

The midge bible is Midges in Scotland by George Hendry.  A must read for anyone coming to or living in the Highlands if only for the humour of which this cartoon is a taster (used on the basis that the copyright holder won't mind given that I'm giving this plug and using it as a 'quotation' for the purpose of honest comment).  The work is otherwise an exceptionally readable treatise on how and why the midge plays such a dominant role in the ecology and human life of the Highlands.

When I first came to live on Lewis in the mid '70s I was told that more people left the Islands because of the midge than because of unemployment, that every midge represented a sin of mankind, and that for every midge killed a hundred came to seek vengeance. I didn't believe such superstitious nonsense.  But do you know what?  There are days when I could believe that it wasn't superstitious nonsense after all.

These days however when the midges get bad even the hardy road workers wear midge protection clothing such as the Midge Head Net or Midge Jacket which were probably inspired by this Punch cartoon from 160 years ago.

Writing this post reminded me that some of my readers have been with me for a long time and I'm sure at least two will remember the first post.

Midge Hell

I am on Skye. It is hot. It is Scotland. There is no wind. There are midges. EVERYWHERE. 

The bedroom I am occupying is not large and last night it was hot and stuffy so I opened the window - for 3 seconds and then shut it again. However I could not shut the ventilator. 

Midges, like mosquitoes, are attracted to carbon monoxide. The room soon filled with my breath and thus contained enough carbon monoxide to attract every midge in Portree. Which I think it did.

Despite having disposed of the duvet when I got into bed I woke at 0322 cooking in my own perspiration being bitten mercilessly by females feeding their young (only female midges bite).

It has not been a good night. Fortunately I do not react badly to midge bites which, given that I must have well over a hundred that I can see and there must be many more that I can't, would have been terrible for some people who react very badly.

Today is going to be interesting. I'm meeting a fellow blogger and her husband who will be visiting Skye. I shall blog about that after the event. However this evening I have to drive to Glasgow. I f I'm too tired I might end up sleeping in the car. It's Bank Holiday weekend and it would seem that every available bed in the West of Scotland is occupied for the next few days.

I've blogged about midges many times but this one entitled 'B****y Midges' at least had some humour in it.

Midges in May

Yesterday afternoon the Minch was so quiet and placid

that last evening the dreaded midges arrived.

This morning there was an eerie stillness over the sea

and the midges were pleased and were still here.

Don't they know that it's still May?!

This is a Common Bistort.  It grows wild hereabouts but I love it so have a patch growing in the garden.  It spreads.  It will soon be a bigger patch.

It has absolutely nothing to do with midges.

Midges and an Adventure

This morning there were a few dead midges around after the door had been open most of yesterday evening so I tried to get some photos with the microscope.  Given that a midge is less than 2mm long it's a challenge just finding it.  David has to go to Uist today.  I shall go for the journey.  It'll be a full day there and back.  So these are some quick midge shots just to let you know how the experiment went: not very well.  I shall get some good shots eventually with a bit more time and application.

Midge taken with camera on macro to give size (mm scale)

Microscope at 20x

Microscope part at 400 times

Never Tempt the Moirai

On 19 January this year CJ aka Scriptor Senex posted on the god DataTransfer .  This proved to be his undoing as his computing world fell apart two days later and he posted Cannot (never mind 'Do Not') Resuscitate.  The moral, he concluded, was that it was unwise to tempt the gods.

Well I've been much more circumspect.  Most of my friends who believe in a god only believe in one whether they believe it to be one emanating from a Christian or Jewish or whatever belief.  However  I understand that Hindus believe in about 330 million gods or a similar number of aspects of a god or gods and the Greeks and Romans worshipped many hundreds of gods. (I've always been rather wary of the Chthonic deities if for no other reason than they are represented collectively by a word which is impossible to spell).  It's all rather confusing. 

Anyway I never mentioned a god in my post yesterday on the subject of midges.  But I didn't have to.  The Moirai or the Parcae or the Three Witches were obviously listening.

Tonight the midges are back.

What Happened to Our Midges?

We've just made the national news.  No midges!  Since my post in June entitled B****y Midges apparently the very dry weather and the cold Northerly winds that we've been having here (in contrast to most of the rest of Britain) has led to the decimation of the midge population.  In fact it's something that I have been commenting upon for most of the time since that post in what we laughingly call summer.  It's wonderful.

I think, by the way, that I may have posted on midges more than any other topic in the five or so years I've been blogging.

B****y Midges

One should always be careful for what one wishes.  Over the last few weeks I've been very conscious that one of the dangers of wishing that the wind would abate was that the midges would appear to torment us.  Well today (written on Sunday) the wind was a friendly Force 3.  That was comfortable but sufficient to keep the midges at bay.  However about an hour ago the wind swung round from the Northerly sector to the Southerly sector at Force 1 after a short period with no wind at all.  In fact as I write this the wind has ceased and the gauge is registering zero.  The consequence is that the midges are everywhere and we are confined to barracks.  Actually 'we' are not.  David and Molly are out there.  Molly is obviously oblivious and David's need for little white cancer sticks is greater than his dislike of the little annoying bitey creatures.

I reached for my trusty Midges in Scotland by George Hendry.  A must read for anyone coming to or living in the Highlands if only for the humour of which this cartoon is a taster (used on the basis that the copyright holder won't mind given that I'm giving this plug and using it as a 'quotation' for the purpose of honest comment).  The work is otherwise an exceptionally readable treatise on how and why the midge plays such a dominant role in the ecology and human life of the Highlands.

When I first came to live on Lewis in the mid '70s I was told that more people left the Islands because of the midge than because of unemployment, that every midge represented a sin of mankind, and that for every midge killed a hundred came to seek vengeance. I didn't believe such superstitious nonsense.  But do you know what?  On a day like this I realise that it wasn't superstitious nonsense after all.


These days however when the midges get bad even the hardy road workers wear midge protection clothing such as the Midge Head Net or Midge Jacket which were probably inspired by this Punch cartoon from 160 years ago.

Oops - An Apology

I'm sorry Mr Weatherman.  Within 30 minutes of me saying that the sun had come out at 0930 the sky had returened to that grey colour one gets used to here and it has stayed that way ever since.  In fact it is greyer and mistier than ever.  And - and here Cynthia's words are ringing in my ears - the midges are so bad that in the 5 metres between the car and the house we were besieged.

So I think that whilst I'm in apologetic mode I should apologise to Cynthia too.  Cynthia said recently:

"I have a friend in Scotland who says that “midges” keep tourists off of the island he lives on in certain months of the year.  That could possibly be a boon to the locals’ privacy.  It sounds like midges are the ultimate tourist deterrent!  I know that when I go to visit in some distant moon, I will schedule the trip in the midges’ “OFF” season."  The comments (on Facebook Networked Blogs) went:

• Graham Barry Edwards The midges aren't that bad. No really! Well ok they can be a real nuisance but only on the calm muggy days and they are not so frequent. This year we were told that they would be really really bad but they've not been bad at all.
  

  09 August at 23:17 · 
• 
  

  Cynthia L. Hines OK, Graham! If you insist! ;^)
  

  10 August at 00:18 · 
• 
  

  Graham Barry Edwards Well they are only little anyway. How could they possibly harm us. Hmmm. Seriously I find them more of an irritation than anything 'cos they get in your ears and eyes. It's the French no see ums that cause me serious grief and sometimes the NZ sandflies. I suppose it can be a case of what you are used to.
  

  10 August at 09:22 · H

Had it been today I would not have said that!  Definitely not!

Pest Pestering Pest

This morning the midges were so bad that even the pigeons were being hounded:

Never Happy

This morning it's sunny and warm at 19℃ here in Eagleton and there is only a very slight breeze.  In most places that would be regarded as pretty idyllic.  A news item last night on the Scottish News said that because of the severe winter we've just had the midges will be three times as bad as usual this year.  Why?  Apparently the midges had been relatively unscathed by the weather whilst their predators have suffered.  So when I ventured out of the house for a few minutes this morning I was surrounded by the little buggers.   Today may be an indoor day unless I decide I have to go out fully clothed and in my midge suit.  

A camper on a Loch Lomond camp site asked if he could be moved to a stand without midges.  "Try England" was the response.

Welcome to Scotland.

This and That

When commenting on a friend of mine who renews his BMW car and motorbike every few years, his new lady-friend said “Yes, he does come with a few nice add-ons.”   Mind you, so does she!  Ah well I’m afraid with me it’s a question of love me, love my Nighthawk and my Handbag.  That’s about the best I can do….. Unless you play croquet.

Am I being unreasonable?  When I fly to and from New Zealand I often have to go via Los Angeles.  I much prefer going via Hong Kong because when you arrive you are welcomed straight into the airport with no queues and you can have a change of clothes and shower.  There is no hassle and the airport is comfortable and the break of journey is a pleasure.  Going via LA the plane just stops for two hours to re-fuel and change crew.  For the passengers it’s two hours of something approaching travellers’ hell.  Firstly you decant from the plane into a corridor.  If you sit at the back of the plane (I only made that mistake once!) it can take you most of that 2 hours standing in a queue to get through immigration control into the transit lounge (whilst you watch passengers getting back onto the plane) where, in law, you are still on New Zealand soil (I travel with Air New Zealand and from the start of my journey until I arrive in NZ under International Law whilst I am in a transit lounge I am on NZ soil wherever the plane stops to refuel).  Does the US recognise this?  No.  What has just prompted my irritation at this moment is that I have just had to pay £25 ($40 US) for the privilege of being allowed to stand in that queue so that the CBP (Border Security) can consider whether he is going to allow me into the Transit Lounge.  Humph.

This morning I was up before 0600 and fed the birds.  It was cool and crisp and the midges hadn’t woken up.  Withing the hour they were swarming outside the Study window.  Capturing midges in flight on camera is not easy:

Nevertheless I tried and those that are in focus have shown up.  There were thousand’s more which didn’t show!

A friend (I think he ought to be nameless because I wouldn’t want anyone to know this if it were me) loves sandwiches with a filling of salad cream and honey.  How gross is that?  Oh.  Go one.  Don’t tell me there’s someone else out there who could eat that.

We were also talking about rice pudding.  My Mum made wonderful rice pud.  As the most senior member of the family in our house at the time Dad was entitled to the skin of the rice pudding which Mum always made quite crispy.  Thank heaven.  I’ll eat almost anything but the idea of eating the skin off the custard (sorry Dave) or rice pudding just revolts me.

On that subject and with Scriptor’s family sayings in mind, Dad always used to say of someone who merited it that they couldn’t knock the skin off a rice pudding.

The Scottish Midge

I blogged last year a bit earlier than this on Midges.  Inevitably when something plays such a significant part in a blogger’s life then it is only natural that there will be various blogs about it.  Today is absolutely perfect midge weather.  It’s warmer than it has been (17 deg c), absolutely calm, dull and overcast with an imperceptible drizzle.  This morning early on I could see the midges swarming outside the kitchen window.  Eventually I had to go out to put the bins out for collection and then go to Town.  By running all the time I actually seem to have avoided being bitten.  I compared that with a few days ago when I filled the bird feeders first thing in the morning wearing my dressing gown (= bare legs!) when in 45 seconds I was bitten 14 times.  The bird feeders need filling at the moment but…..

I would have tried to entertain you with a posting on little (2 mm long) critter but CJ (Scriptor Senex) did that in June 2008 when her was here in a posting entitled, informatively, The Highland Midge which appeared on his now-abandoned blog The Editorial.

One of the few humans to be exempt from attack by The Highland Midge is the lone piper who plays to entertain coachloads of tourists in various Highland beauty spots.  As one midge said “It’s not a good idea to drink the decoy.”

Midges

This morning there is no wind. That is a Good Thing. This morning at just over 11 deg (yes, I know, it's summer here!) it's a bit warmer than of late. That is a Good Thing. This morning the midges are horrendous! That is a Bad Thing.

In my experience midges do not usually come indoors although they do sometimes make an exception to that rule - usually when they follow a potential meal inside. This morning has been that exception when CJ went for a garden stroll and came back covered in the little blighters.

When I arrived on the Island I cut peats and I planted potatoes. Both of these are communal and outdoor activities. The midges must be mourning the severe diminution of these activities and the fact that even the hard men of the road squads even wear midge protection clothing these days.

Of midges it was said that there was one for every sin of mankind. I can believe that. It was also said that more people left the Island because of the midges than because of the lack of employment opportunities. Perhaps that's stretching things a bit far.

Almost a year ago CJ posted a fairly comprehensive article on The Highland Midge on his, now defunct, The Editorial.

Bathtime for the Birds

Today has been hot. Really quite hot indeed. In fact in the garden it reached just over 25 in the shade. As there was no breeze there was no wind chill factor either. It was a lovely day because despite the weather conditions once the early morning ones had gone there were NO MIDGES. So I managed to get quite a lot done in the garden this afternoon. Indeed I'm writing this in the Study at 2231 without a light on and it's a beautiful evening and 16 degrees. It is just so hard to believe that a few days ago I had a heater on because the temperature was in single figures.

Today it was not just the humans who were feeling the heat though. The stream became the cooling off point for some of the Starlings.