07-12-2010, 04:26 PM
0
We have the 'Blandford Fly' here.
Rumor has it that it escaped from Porton Down and was on military transport going to the Blandford Camp. It is a tiny tiny black bug, so small it can hardly be seen or felt when it bites you. It caused terrible problems all along the Stour River, where it lived on the river banks. After a few years it had reached Christchurch the mouth of the river and beyond the river banks into peoples garden ponds, or into marshy areas, including where we were living just after we got married 30 years ago.
It only flew about 6 inches off the ground but if you got caught, your joints ached all over, the site of the bite would swell so much and at worse the skin could split. Usually it was a case of a trip to the doctors for antibiotics unless you realised from the blood on your ankle did you know you'd been caught.
I got bitten twice, the second time I treated it at once and only needed a few days off work.
It got so bad eventually the river was sprayed and the fly appeared to have been iradicated.
Except, this year (May is worst) we have seen it back again. The season is longer too. The Pharmacist I work with once a week comes from Blandford (so has become an expert on the symptoms) and his wife got bitten on the face this summer while she was weeding. She was blind in one eye for a week with the swelling, and he had started treating it as soon as he saw the blood on her face. She didn't even feel the bite at the time.
Rumor has it that it escaped from Porton Down and was on military transport going to the Blandford Camp. It is a tiny tiny black bug, so small it can hardly be seen or felt when it bites you. It caused terrible problems all along the Stour River, where it lived on the river banks. After a few years it had reached Christchurch the mouth of the river and beyond the river banks into peoples garden ponds, or into marshy areas, including where we were living just after we got married 30 years ago.
It only flew about 6 inches off the ground but if you got caught, your joints ached all over, the site of the bite would swell so much and at worse the skin could split. Usually it was a case of a trip to the doctors for antibiotics unless you realised from the blood on your ankle did you know you'd been caught.
I got bitten twice, the second time I treated it at once and only needed a few days off work.
It got so bad eventually the river was sprayed and the fly appeared to have been iradicated.
Except, this year (May is worst) we have seen it back again. The season is longer too. The Pharmacist I work with once a week comes from Blandford (so has become an expert on the symptoms) and his wife got bitten on the face this summer while she was weeding. She was blind in one eye for a week with the swelling, and he had started treating it as soon as he saw the blood on her face. She didn't even feel the bite at the time.
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