Why I Hate Flies More During Winter Than Summer
Slow and stealthy: the winter fly’s secret weapon
No one expects flies in winter. Summer is different; I know I have to be diligent about covering up food, dusting off the fly swatter, and making sure I don’t unintentionally lock one in the fridge, only to have it drunkenly buzz out upon reopening after having feasted on the remains of a roast chicken I forgot to cover up.
I’m not selfish; I wouldn’t mind if it just took a little bite and moved on, but no. Firstly, it has no teeth so it uses spit instead. It begins the meal by vomiting saliva onto my food to dissolve it and then sucks the whole regurgitated mess back up before pooping out the waste. Charming.
During winter, flies move a lot more slowly, almost in stealth mode. This means I often don’t notice the sneaky little insect walking along the kitchen counter until it’s almost on my breakfast plate or about to take a swim in my morning coffee.
The only good thing about winter flies is that they are so slow you can often catch them by hand, which is surprising considering flies perceive time a whole lot slower than humans.
Four times slower in fact.
Bullet time.
What makes them slow down during winter?
Flies are ectothermic insects, and their body temperatures are affected by the environment. When it’s colder they become lethargic and sluggish often dying if temperatures drop too low.
When it’s warm they’re much faster, zipping around the kitchen, landing and taking off at speed. Not to mention shagging for the first team to produce more of their annoying offspring.
During the peak of summer, a house fly egg can hatch in eight hours and grow into an adult fly in four days while in cooler weather it can take up to two days to hatch and a month to mature into an adult.
How is it they can sneak up on me unnoticed?
Thanks to our instinct for survival, humans are more inclined to notice fast-moving objects. Back in the day if Caveman Krog was slow to notice a cave hyena galloping towards him, his flight or fight response wouldn’t kick in fast enough to save him from being hyena lunch.
Anything approaching us at high speed could mean a potential threat to our survival so we’re more responsive to rapidly moving objects. Coupled with that, we’re also geared to notice sudden changes within our field of view and anything that moves into our field of view at speed is going to get our immediate attention.
The upside
The upside is they appear to do more walking than flying. So much so, that they could be renamed “walks” in cold weather. Summer flies on the other hand fly everywhere. They swoop in land on your food, and do their disgusting vomit, digest, suck, poop routine until they are shooed away. Winter flies just walk around.
I’ll be innocently munching on a slice of avocado and basil toast only to glance down and see a winter fly having a casual stroll past my plate. So slow, so stealthily it’s difficult to figure out whether it’s arriving or leaving. I know it may sound like I’m being overly dramatic but it enrages me.
The thought that this revolting insect is managing to sneak up on me without my noticing and puke on my food makes me want to smash it to smithereens. And I do. With great delight.
To my advantage is the fact that even though time is slowed down dramatically for flies and they can see me coming they’re too lethargic to do anything about it. I can just imagine this little fly seeing the fly swatter coming and yelling “Noooooooo!” in slow motion.
Suffice it to say I take a lot of my frustration and rage out on the winter walking flies. Then I feel bad about it seeing as they are at a disadvantage and all. Not really a fair fight, blahdy blahdy blah and I hate them because I feel guilty about turning them into fly mash.
Summer flies not so much.
