This girl made the mistake of biting my neck yesterday.
The very wet summer coupled with a pretty active Hurricane Season has caused a jump in the mosquito population around here. If you get into the shade, or near a body of freshwater, you soon wind up covered with the little vampires.
Even in sunny open areas they get you, just with less backup.
Yesterday, I zipped out to some local ditches and creeks to dipnet more gambusia minnows to toss in the pond since it is now holding water ... and therefore, mosquito larvae. The fish multiply quick and are voracious predators of mosquito wrigglers so that should help in the long term.
(Pond is about knee deep by the way)
I also went around the place emptying anything that was holding rainwater. It turns out I was growing quite a crop of skeeters due to my own neglect of this important chore.
Too many skeeters are a negative consequence of abundant rain. The positive effects vastly outweigh a few pesky, disease vectoring mosquitoes.
Like this for instance.
19 comments:
That's one big skeeter!
Was that Junior driving the JEEP so recklessly?
We're having probably the worst plasma-purloiner plague since we moved here. Duller took the dog out the other night and they swarmed in. Usually 1 or 2 come in, but he vacuumed a couple dozen off the entry ceiling. I think Gustav blew up some of those salt-marsh super-suckers. Hopefully, Hannah will hurry them homeward.
Yesterday's Palomedes pic is beautiful! And I had to laugh right out loud a couple times reading about your failed friendship. (Poor Bear!) I would've commented then, but I had to momentarily leave the room after watching/hearing your little water clip. (Maybe Bear heard it, too?) 8-}
that is one gi-normous skeeter!
Wow. That's a big skeeter. I was complaining a while back about skeeters so big that you could feel them land on your arm (or wherever) but that one is a lot bigger. You must get bruises when they settle in on you. You can see the teeth on that one! Good luck with the mosquito control! Yikes!
I am thinking about buying a few of those for the garden pond and keeping them inside in a fish tank in winter. I put guppies out every year, but they don't seem to do the job as well as I would like. We too have a sudden huge influx of mosquitoes and you can barely work outdoors even in sunshine!
The video brings back memories of begging my dad to drive through EVERY puddle we saw. It was a big treat on the rare occasions that he did.
Your mosquito looks like an Asian Tiger Mosquito. They are really nasty.
reckon the neighbors will be in shortly to use yore new swimmin' hole...knee high already?
Pablo,
No,no, it was me and totally WRECK-less.
:)
Sophie,
LOL!
Bear is a laugh a minute usually ... so I understand. Glad to hear the video was stimulating.
Who Woulda,
Most definitely!
Egret,
Lucky me, I get no reaction after the initial ouch of the bite.
3C,
That's how they are here too. Gambusia really do a good job. You can also get the BT bacteria thingies to plunk in your pond to kill mosquitoes.
Susan,
I did the same requests ... also begged him to stop for just about every turtle crossing the road.
It was a thrill when it was safe and he actually did.
Doug,
That's what I thought too. They should go well with our pesky little Asian cockroaches.
Aunty,
Neighbors?
Oh you mean the deer, yes, they were in there wading about just last evening.
Good God, that's not a skeeter, that's a small bird! :D
Hey, that thing's so big, it needs it's own stewardess! (old Rodney Dangerfield joke)
Annie,
Wacka wacka!
Love the Dangerfield!
Jeebus! I think Edifice got that right. You're holding the creature right out of the B-movie, "Mansquito". Ours are so small and transparent and wispy, but that monster is as close to an Apache chopper as I'm going to find. Yeesh.
In the meantime that's the kind of splashing I do on a bike. Fun-ness forever.
We had skeeters bad up until Fay came through. Haven't had any since but we do have swarms of flies now. They don't bite but they are really annoying. I don't know where the skeeters went but I'm hoping they get lost and don't find their way back LOL
hey is that one of those zebra ones? nasty... what are they called.
Holy blood suckers Batman! That's a HUGE skeeter!
Cutter must be making a killing this year. I know we've already purchased our body weight in the stuff so far.
Freste,
Definitely fun.
We have normal skeeters too, but I thought this one was noteworthy.
SCMomma,
I think they blew here. Giving them directions home now.
JOJO,
Asian Tiger. An import from the old world.
Just Right,
I hear ya. I keep 2 cans in my JEEP.
Those things have been vicious the last few days. Hate 'em.
I loved the video! We've had more rain here this year than anyone can recall, and of course mosquitos like never before too!
Sharon,
Same here.
Dave,
They're everywhere!!
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