The day of the fly

May 14 was a good day for flies, large and small. The little creatures abounded in the salt marsh hay and bulrushes of the upper brackish marsh. The largest among the airborne crowds was the exquisitely fragile crane fly about half and inch long. They gracefully lifted into the air at my approach dropping almost immediately to the ground and perching on a stalk of grass hardly distinguishable in the dense growth. On the second approach they took off among the stem and were immediately lost in the maize of the marsh turf.   

Salt marsh crane fly

 Another pretty little fly with a distinct pattern of clear spots on the wings swarmed abundantly just above the grass. This species of shore flies (Scatella setosa) was collected and described for the first time during the famous Harriman Alaska Expedition of 1899. The “outing” was funded by a rail magnate E.H. Harriman, and included such luminaries as John Burroughs, John Muir, and Louis Agassiz leisurely traveling on a specially retrofitted 250 ft steamer yacht. My favorite Harriman State Park  50 miles north of NYC was carved out of a massive E.H. Harriman estate after his death.

A shore fly (Scatella setosa)

Shore flies thrive in the inhospitable salt marsh environment. A stout brownish fly is often seen skating effortlessly on the small saltwater pools sometimes numbering in the hundreds. Under perceived or real danger, they hop off further away from the source without leaving their favorite “pond”. Ephydra subopaca was important enough to deserve its own book (The biology of Ephydra subopaca Loew, by Chih Ping, Cornell University, 1921). Unaware of its fame, it happily laps up detritus from the pool surface.

Ephydra subopaca, another shore fly, yam-yam

Ephydra subopaca shore flies on the salt marsh pool surface

 

A personal mystery was fluffily carried through the air. For several years I have been searching for salt marsh midges, supposedly common non-biting relatives of mosquitoes. All my poking into the murky depths of salt marsh potholes produced zero “bloodworms”, the aquatic immature stages. Yet, I see them dancing merrily in the meadow. Where have you come from and wither wilt thou go? 

Salt marsh midge