Muffleheads

Sorry, sorry. I guess I just care too much about animals. :P I was thinking nets or strategically placed sprinklers or some other non-harmful deterrent to encourage them to nest elsewhere.

Is that what they're called? I always referred to them as "those weird fly things" or "baby fish flies"

I wasn't even aware of those birds but now that I know about them I did indeed see one attacking people as they walked out of the Maverick line.

There may be a few muffleheads or midges around today, however just below the large American flag at the entrance is a flower bed with some pinkish white flowers. There were what had to be a few hundred Monarch Butterflies on them, It was really neat looking.

Guess who's back, right on time. Woke up this morning to the side of my house covered with muffleheads. It seemed particularly heavy for the first wave. Don't see any clouds thick enough to be visible on the webcams yet. So we'll see how that translates to the park experience tomorrow.

I'm questioning if those were actually the red-winged blackbirds being shot since I'm fairly certain those are a protected bird species, as are seagulls, as annoying as they are. What aren't protected are house sparrows and starlings since those are both invasive species, and I'm fairly certain your generic pigeons aren't either.

While your blackbirds are definitely the ones that get the most aggressive defending their nests, sparrows and starlings are the ones who are going to be making the messy nests in problematic places (e.g. in the crevices of every grocery store sign) that I could actually see them going after.

Hey, at least they aren't lovebugs!

I'd never seen a lovebug until I went down to Florida in May of 2019. They look like big flying carpenter ants. They're harmless to people BUT in May and September they have their mating season. During that time they mate...while flying...all over the place.

Yes, May and September the air in Florida is FULL of little copulating lovebugs, bumping into everything and getting into your hair and your clothes and all over the ground. I even had a few on me that I didn't know about until I took a shower after getting home from the trip!

I'll take muffleheads and mayflies over lovebugs any day of the week!

That song just took on a whole new meaning XD