Super Fly

It was 24 degrees with a wind chill of 18 yesterday afternoon when I went outside to put some cardboard in our recycling bin. On the way back inside I did a double take. There on the north side of the house was a house fly. He wasn’t there in the morning when I went out to get the newspaper so he must’ve come from somewhere.

After reading Winter World I understand a lot more about how animals, including insects, survive harsh winter conditions (we’ve had plenty of that this year!). There’s a great chapter in the book about honeybees. Bees are cooped up in their hives for months during the winter and when a warmer day arrives they sometimes venture out for cleansing flights which is a fancy way of saying they exit the hive to relieve themselves. Sometimes they misjudge the temperature and fly out, instantly freeze and crash to their deaths like pilots in tiny little airplanes. I wonder if a similar thing happened to the fly.

Perhaps there are some fly eggs in our soffit that got warmed by the March sun yesterday. If so, he must’ve had a rude awakening when he hatched and tried to fly. I could’ve been all scientific and brought him inside to see if he was still alive or just supercooled, but yuck, it’s a fly!