Friday, June 20, 2008

No Fly zone


A released house fly

Armed with the bug vac I spent a bit of time following the small swarm of flies (by swarm I really mean three), trying to suck them up in the bug vac and capturing them. Did I ever mention that I wished that the suck power of the vacuum was more powerful? Powerful enough to snatch the fly right out of the air? Unfortunately it's not and to get the flies I had to have the nozzle on right on top of them.

I've noticed that the flies will hang around the east windows in the morning and the west facing windows in the evening. Probably attracted to the light (and maybe heat) of the sun. That made it a bit easier to corner them and eventually capture them.

Once caught, I brought the bug vac outside and let them go. One of them decided to hang around the deck, walking along the planks. It was this one that I took a few macro photos of (see above).

2 comments:

Emmanuel Lopez - Motivatorman said...

Wow what a fantastic fly shot Derek.

Emmanuel
Motivatorman

Anonymous said...

If you read Bill Bryson's "A Short History of the Universe" you'll find that flying bugs are attracted to light because they use the moon and sun as navigation. That's why you see them fly in a circle around light until they get closer and closer, and then when their so close, it screws up their navigation system so bad they just keep hitting the bulb.

I think capturing flies with chopsticks Miyagi style is the coolest.