I hate to think I attract flies. But I do cook for my daughter once a week here at the Maple Residences, so I’m hoping it’s the food smells that have flies lined up in formation to come in as soon as I open the screen door to my balcony.
Because I don’t kill them, I am forced to go on fly safaris and capture them, bravely armed with a drinking glass and a piece of paper.
And because I get to know them intimately before I put them out, I have learned that house flies have very different personalities, ranging from placid to frenetic.
I don’t know why Central Richmond flies (I moved from Central Richmond so I know those flies) are more lackadaisical than Steveston ones. Steveston flies are far more involved in playing “Catch me if you Can,” whilst darting here and there, whereas Central flies seem to be content with just lazing loops.
So, I was very surprised the other day when a fly landed on my coffee table and I was able to sneak up behind her and surreptitiously place a glass over her.
I slowly eased a piece of paper under the glass and there she was, captive. Did she knock herself out as they usually do full force against the glass or walk quickly around the rim to see if there was a way out? No. And this is how I know she was a girl; she calmly sat and preened herself, acting as though she didn’t have a worry in the world.
First, her front legs. Then each wing and then her back legs. Then she just sat and waited for something to develop. I figured there must be a reason she was so placid, perhaps she was just tired?
I know I wasn’t in the mood to fly or even walk after giving birth four separate times and I wondered if this lady fly was just tired after going through eggbirth?
I learned that a housefly’s lifespan is approximately 15 to 30 days and, in that time, she would have been able to lay up to six batches of 150 eggs each batch.
If that had happened to her recently, she had a perfect right to just sit and relax. She had already proven she was tough, having survived her own birth from an egg to a larva, then a pupa and then an adult.
I let her rest a little while longer before saying goodbye. I lifted the glass and held the paper on top until I had the screen door open and then I took off the paper and she was free to leave. She nonchalantly climbed up the glass and flew off without even a waggle of her wings.
Nadine Jones is a former journalist for the Vancouver Sun.
