Looks like a nice country scene, right? Not quite...
We've almost all heard of the starlings murmuration, where thousands of small birds soar the skies together in unison forming a dancing cloud that is truly hypnotizing to see. Well here in Ontario we have a similar phenomenon, just add in a huge creep factor that these are bugs, not birds, swarming together in what we mistook as smoke clouds from field fires. May Flies, at least that's what I think they are, en masse, ad nauseum.
On the weekend we went for two drives, almost exactly through the same routes. We stopped in Wicklow, Ontario a few times (post with pics to come) on both excursions. Each time we got out of the car we had to hold our hands over our mouths and noses to breathe because these tiny little flies were everywhere, and not too shy about invading our personal space. Eyes, ears, mouth, nose and hair, these little buggers had no qualms about flying and landing pretty much on or in any part of us. It was disgusting.
As we continued down lakeshore road we began to notice clouds of, what appeared to be, black smoke rising from the forest and other areas. Lots of them. It took us a few minutes to realize that these "clouds" were not smoke, but bugs. Lots and lots of bugs. I hate bugs. The "clouds" were dancing, and I'll be perfectly blunt, they did not hold the same hypnotic quality as the starlings, any chills up our spines were from disgust, not the mesmerizing effect of nature's beautiful dance.
The top picture doesn't really do the "clouds" justice. The camera (or camerawoman) just couldn't capture the moving pests properly, so I reversed the image above to the negative - it shows it a bit better. All those white tufts? Bugs. Lots and lots of icky little bugs.
I supposed on the bright side, the spiders are being well fed... wait, what? Ack!
Anyone else in the area notice an overabundance of these little buggers?
