Message Forums

As one who lived in Blandford Forum, Dorset - beware the Blandford Fly. It is so voraciuos, varyo, veroa, nasty and bitey that it's made national news. Around the New Forest we have a particular type of horse fly we know as a Crawler and the horses hate. My wife and I recently watched one on our mare and the thing was actualy parting the horses hair with its front feet to get a bigger munch. Obviously we stopped it, but these things are devils to kill. Seen one in two seperate halvesboth still crawling.

As for Scottish midges. I've heard they have reached Poole area in Dorset and seen how badly they can effect a person through persistant bites over two weeks of camping - that was my ex wife soon after she left me. She'd been camping in Scotland with her new fella for two weeks on their bike. NB. He'd owned a Suzuki 1000cc, while I'd had a 900cc, when she left me for him - being a proper man I went out and bought an 1100cc. Dr. Freud, I'm ready now! Anyway, I called on her for some paperwork and found her face looking like an advert for raspberries, all lumpy and bumpy. She told me how the weather had been terrible, the bike had blown up needing lots of money to repair it and they had returned to their tent one night and been caught in the middle of a massive police swoop to capture a murderer who just happened to have picked the caravan next to them to hide under - I kid you not. After I'd had the papers signed I rode back to where I was staying with a mate until I sorted out what was left for me from our home. A place where I felt miserable and lost. A place that wasn't mine and where I couldn't even have my cat. And laughed my ar*e off. 

Quote: Originally posted by alan29 on 01/9/2008

---

There is a thing called the Blandford Biting Fly. I used to go out with a girl from there who carried the scar years after being bitten.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A6756519

Alan

---

'they had returned to their tent one night and been caught in the middle of a massive police swoop to capture a murderer who just happened to have picked the caravan next to them to hide under - I kid you not.'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Did the police tip-off come from the southampton area.

Brian

I got bitten this weekend by midges, 2 bites in all...can you let me know if am I dead?

Killer ants & mozzies wow!!   Seriously though I had to fight of an Anaconda when I was walking the dog this weekend, grass snakes are no more in Scotland but Anaconda's are rife....

I will encore the effectiveness os Avon SSS (Skin so Soft) for midge and other insec repellent.  Have also used in in other countries such as Africa and America with reasonable results athough finding the local 'remedy' usually works best.  Autan, used by anglers is also effective but less favourable aromatically speaking.

Horseflies, on the other hand, seem more determined.  I have watched them stalk me and other people and then silently, stealthily drif in on the blind side to bite.  If you look them in the eye they'll drift away.  No - seriously, they don't like eye contact.   So if you see a largish grey-striped fly sitting on a rock, stone or log for a length of time (sometimes they walk aound or shift position by about a couple of feet) it is watching you.  The first thing that you realise that you have been bitten is an itchy lump sometimes with a speck of blood - yours.   Then it hurts like hell so get to the antihistamine tube/bottle fast.

Hope this helps.  

ps, for some reason some people are more prone to be singled out in a crowd by these beasties.  I know !   They'll bite me while in the midst of a crowd of people.  I have become adept at spotting them first and have also trained my oh to spot them.  They don't often go for her and she really didn't believe me when I first told her about the above untill she whitnessed it for herself.  Nowadays I strike first!