Oct 7, 2023, temp only 59, and already a giant swarm, almost as dense as a snowstorm. In the last few years the aphids have pulled a headfake before the serious swarm, but this one looks like the real thing. Birds are flitting and diving, catching bugs in midair. Seems like a lot of work for a little nutrition, but I guess the bugs are big enough in proportion to the birds. A hundred aphids for a songbird would be about like a hundred beans for a human.
From a quick estimate, a bug for a bird is quite a bit more than a bean for a person. A bean is about 4 times the length of an aphid, and a human is about 16 times the length of a songbird. The real comparison would be volume instead of length, but the comparison would still be in the same direction.
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[This is the fourteenth time I’ve noted it here. Aphid Day in 2010 was the first of Oct, in 2011 it was the end of Oct, in 2012 the first of Oct, in 2013 the last part of Oct, in 2014 (with an actual picture) the end of Sept, in 2015 end of Sept, in 2016 end of Sept, in 2017 near end of Oct, in 2018 around mid Oct, in 2019 around mid Oct., in 2020 early Nov., in 2021 Oct 3, in 2022 Oct 8., and now in 2023 (tentatively) Oct 7. Same as last two years.]
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Every year in Spokane the end of summer is marked by the swarming of tiny white-winged flies.
Insects don’t waste much time in adulthood; lots of bugs live several years as larvae and only a few days as adults.
These flies take it to an extreme. Adults are minimally equipped to get in the air and reproduce. They don’t have as much brain power as other flies, nor do they have hard shells. Instead of flying purposefully, they drift with the wind like seeds, and die as soon as they bump into anything even at near-zero drifting speed. Result: for a couple of days, your face and clothes are covered with semi-liquid insects.
Despite their lack of navigation, they must have some kind of superior instinct or ‘community intelligence’, because picking the last warm day is much harder than picking the first warm day of spring. Termites and ants don’t need to calculate their swarming day; they only need a simple neuron to detect when temperature rises past a certain threshold, plus an emitted pheromone to trigger the avalanche.
But how do these flies determine that today is not just warm, but the last warmth for their generation? They must be sensing something besides temperature.
At any rate, they serve as a reliable sign for us, even if our supercomputers can’t match their calculations.
Polistra has put it into folk-wisdom format:
White flies swarming, no more warming.
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[Artistic note: the swarm in the animation turned out nicely, but Polistra’s head looks steroid-swollen and South-Park-ish for unknown reasons. Maybe she’s allergic to the bugs.]
[Technical note: According to some sources, these bugs are smoky-winged ash aphids, Prociphilus americanus.]
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Polistra's Mill 