Where have all the bugs gone - I miss them...

Cold Spring on Adams, and a virtual haze of them on top of Deception Peak today, which is pretty much normal.

My impression is that there have been fewer than normal at most of my standard ski venues. More noteworthy: I've been encountering clouds of blackflies but have only been bitten a couple of times. Today, for example, they were waiting for me at precisely the spot where I had to remove skis, change socks, trade T-2's for running shoes, etc. on the way down from Ruth Mtn: a great big cloud of blackflies, and me a big, sweaty, carbon dioxide-emitting, blood-rich, stationary target. Net result: a single bite on my left wrist, which itched for a while then vanished. In years past I'd have been reduced to gibbering idiocy within minutes by blackflies crawling down my shirt, up my pantlegs, into my cuffs (well, if I even had cuffs; I was wearing a tank top). And each bite would have itched for days, festering and swelling and generally interfering with my normal Buddha-like calm. What gives?

I have yet to experience any bad bugs this year... they seem to have been almost non-existent where I've been. Just lucky I guess?

I have a theory.

Last year I noticed the absence of black biting flies. I know they can be seasonal and last year was a different sort of year as far as snowpack melt-off. Last year I also noticed this little green guy. It is a low-flying burrowing wasp? But I off-handedly said to myself and probably my wife that maybe this thing is eating all the black biting flies. I mean those black flies seem tenacious and tough and all that, but when they are small I'm sure they are easy pickin's.

So this year I have noticed this green dude in my yard along with some other new bugs. I think it is the same thing that I saw up on the Scott Paul trail last year. It went into a spent firework and hung out in there for about fifteen seconds. Thats probably about two weeks in bug time. Two weeks in a spent firecracker? wth?

I guess I left a few of you hanging with "hopefully"....sorry about that....anyway, in the Olympics there hasn't been bug one. Well, actually, last Saturday I saw (1) gnat...no mosquitoes. I mean one gnat, give me a break. I wonder if the late winter, sudden melt-off and dry conditions have meant very few bugs. I feel sorry for the little guys.
Glad to hear "Black Fly Pass" (Hannegan) was more normal. I figure if you need bugs, you can always go to "Black Fly Pass" or Peggy's Pond - you'll never be disappointed by a lack of bugs if you go there - if disappointed is the right word....

Well, I found out where the bugs have gone this summer. Every last one of them is stationed near the Boulder Ridge climber's trail, waiting for the occasional weary skier. In fact, they seem to have divided up the territory, with flies along the swampy bits of trail and hungry, aggressive mosquitoes in the parking lot and on down the forest road (I stopped to work a cramp out of my leg and almost succumbed).