Pests?

We have had a few days of insect infestation….thousands of small hovering ‘flies’ with yellow stripes on their backs. A friend thought that they were native stingless bees and they do look similar to the pics of the many variety of native bees. They are about the size of a small house fly and hover. This morning I rang the W.A. Ag. Dept and was told that they are Hover Flies and the whole metropolitan area is infested with them. Fortunately they are not like ordinary flies; they don’t bite, get on your BBQ snaggers or try and get up your nose for a drink. It seems that they are beneficial, pollinating flowers and fruit. I am, however, glad that they have moved on.

On the subject of flies, we have had a good run this last year…..very few flies as a result of the very dry conditions. Now, however, the flies have had a good season and are back in force. On our walk today near Bibra Lake we were almost choked by swarms of midges. Also near the lake in an open area we saw a family of six rabbits. They looked like they were having fun playing in the mowed grass. I will return today at dusk with a long lens on my SLR and try and get a few shots of them. Rabbits have had a bad press. They were here in plague proportions and I remember netting them around dams in the fifties on my grandparents’ farm in the wheatbelt. The Bibra Lake rabbits are unlikely to do much damage as there are no crops for them to destroy and if they ventured out of the parkland I am sure pussy cats and Rottweilers would soon eat them up…or in the case of the latter…tear them apart.

There is a mature fig tree in the parkland at Bibra Lake and it is laden with fruit. We have never been lucky enough to taste them as they suddenly disappear as they ripen. I guess it must be the council employees who cut the grass inside the park who do daily checks as the fruit ripen.