Midges

Are definitely NOT vegan.

skritch skritch skritch

then licks blood from my fingers

Yes, beware of midges  

"Midges can detect carbon dioxide in your breath 200 metres away. They are attracted to dark clothing and love boggy ground, undergrowth, and gloomy, still conditions at the start and end of the day. So, put on your old cricket whites and head for breezy, sunlit hillsides with a packed lunch instead. And if you do get bitten, don't dance around swearing. You'll only broadcast your location by releasing more carbon dioxide.

A good splash of midge repellent will help – or follow the example of Scottish crofters. Traditionally they tied bog myrtle around their ankles. Today, savvy Highlanders have a new secret weapon: Avon Skin So Soft lotion. Finally, there's an old adage: "Kill one midge and a thousand will come to its funeral." Don't listen – it depends how you do it. Kill it quietly with a precision jab of the forefinger and none of the others need know."

Words from here
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2013/jun/23/how-to-beat-midges-summer

Hope the skritch skritch skritch is now improving Chris ...

All the best Jan

PS I don't know if the Avon lotion mentioned in the article works ...

Oh yes I remember reading about that one, it does appear to work.

I remember Bog Myrtle from the New Forest, last time I was down I picked a sprig and kept it in the car for ages.

The damn midges breed in the pond, among other places, and get into the house where they hang around the toilets waiting for a bottom to be bared as my mother used to find. They also bite heads and get entangled in my beard, sometimes emerging hours later.

Using my good friend Wikipedia!!!

Bog Myrtle or Myrica gale is a species of flowering plant in the genus Myrica, native to northern and western Europe and parts of northern North America. Common names include Bog-myrtle and sweetgale.
It is a deciduous shrub growing to 1–2 m tall. The leaves are spirally arranged, simple, 2–5 cm long, oblanceolate with a tapered base and broader tip, and a crinkled or finely toothed margin. The flowers are catkins, with male and female catkins on separate plants (dioecious). The fruit is a small drupe.
It typically grows in acidic peat bogs, and to cope with these difficult nitrogen-poor growing conditions, the roots have nitrogen-fixing actinobacteria which enable the plants to grow.

The foliage has a sweet resinous scent and is a traditional insect repellent, used by campers to keep biting insects out of tents. It is also a traditional component of Royal Wedding bouquets and is used variously in perfumery and as a condiment.

In north-western Europe (Germany, Belgium and Great Britain), it was much used in a mixture called gruit as a flavouring for beer from the Middle Ages to the 16th century, but it fell into disuse after hops supplanted gruit herbs for political and economic reasons.
In modern times, some brewers have revisited this historic technique and in Denmark and Sweden the plant is commonly used to prepare home-flavoured schnaps.


Words above and more here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrica_gale

Keep away from those midges

All the best Jan

Unfortunately doesn't grow around here.

Try not to get your midge bites sunburned, that doesn't help as I have just found out.

Talking to someone today who had been bitten by a cleg (horsefly) he swore by hydrocortisone ointment (from Boots but proper pharmacies also exist). Strange, clegs would travel miles just to bite my mother, and were sometimes so bad she would have her arm in a sling. They never bothered me or my father much, though when I do get bitten I usually end up with a swollen red spot that itches for weeks. The Yanks call the small midges, the ones that love me, "no-see-ums". I'm also moderately attractive to mosquitoes, especially the woodland ones with the stripy legs which I thought were Aedes but now seem to be called Culiseta

http://influentialpoints.com/Gallery/Mosquitoes_and_Biting_Midges.htm#annula

I'm not sure that low carbing hasn't made me less attractive to most of them except for the no-see-ums, but the bites from the bigger ones are less bothersome than they used to be. Reduced inflammation?

chris c wrote:Unfortunately doesn't grow around here.

Try not to get your midge bites sunburned, that doesn't help as I have just found out.

Talking to someone today who had been bitten by a cleg (horsefly) he swore by hydrocortisone ointment (from Boots but proper pharmacies also exist). Strange, clegs would travel miles just to bite my mother, and were sometimes so bad she would have her arm in a sling. They never bothered me or my father much, though when I do get bitten I usually end up with a swollen red spot that itches for weeks. The Yanks call the small midges, the ones that love me, "no-see-ums". I'm also moderately attractive to mosquitoes, especially the woodland ones with the stripy legs which I thought were Aedes but now seem to be called Culiseta

http://influentialpoints.com/Gallery/Mosquitoes_and_Biting_Midges.htm#annula

I'm not sure that low carbing hasn't made me less attractive to most of them except for the no-see-ums, but the bites from the bigger ones are less bothersome than they used to be. Reduced inflammation?

The solution is easy just move to London. The air is so polluted the midges lungs pack up the moment they start to breath. Sorted

Eddie wrote:
The solution is easy just move to London. The air is so polluted the midges lungs pack up the moment they start to breath. Sorted

Been there done that don't ever want to go back, not even to Ealing.

Besides don't you get pecked to death by green parrots?

I think I'd rather see the green parrots than midges!
But talking green parrots, yes I remember you saying about them before Chris, and there's more to read ...  

"The number of wild parrots living in England is rising at 30% per year, says an Oxford University research project.
Parks and gardens in the leafy London suburbs have been adopted as a preferred habitat by birds that are native to southern Asia.

In the Surrey stockbroker belt, a single sports ground is believed to be home to about 3,000 parrots.
The rate of increase, helped by mild winters, is much greater than had been expected.

The findings have also been echoed by a large number of e-mails from BBC News Online readers, who have reported how parrots - particularly parakeets - have now become familiar sights.

Parrot hotspots
These hundreds of e-mails, including photographs, highlighted hotspots such as west of London, Surrey and parts of Kent.

But there were also parrots reported in inner-London, including parks in Peckham, Brixton, Greenwich and Kensington.
And a few parrots had been spotted in East Anglia, the North West and in Scotland.

When I first moved to Ealing a couple of years ago, I thought I was seeing things when I saw a flock of bright green birds in the tree outside. They are regular visitors now.says Helen, London"

Read more here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/3869815.stm

All the best Jan

They used to roost on Eel Pie Island or somewhere in West London. After I moved back to Surrey they were all over the place including some huge roosts. I think they were originally also on the Isle Of Thanet in Kent. A few were recently spotted in Lowestoft so they're on the way. Maybe the Buzzards or Peregrines or Kites will keep them in check.