The mighty maggot

Warning: don't read this while eating your dinner.

Long ago, in an inexplicable poetic moment of youth, and clearly after a lot of deep thought, I penned the following .

We would sink
Beneath stuff that stinks
If it wasn't for the maggot.

I know - its pathetic really but it popped into my head out of nowhere at the weekend and has prompted me to spring back to blogging life after a 3 week hiatus.  Let me explain.

On 23rd March this year I came upon a dead adult grey seal on the Northumberland coast. It was pretty much intact and odourless.  On Sunday I walked passed the same spot and looked for it again.  A high tide had swept it further up the shore but there it was, or at least what was left of it and what was left of it was not a lot.   A huge beast reduced to a flat piece of skin, a few bones and a stain on the grass within less than three months. 

Impressive, and those wonders of decomposition were still at it, working away on the last remants.

So, dear readers, raise a glass...to the baby blowfly. Cheers.

Beauty and the Bummler

In my urban childhood, fly identification was a piece of cake. Any large fly on a piece of cake was announced as a 'bummler' (usually in a loud voice) before being unceremoniously flattened with a rolled up newspaper. Any kid that showed even a passing interest in the fly was also classified as a bummler and learned to keep a low profile.

Happily, things move on and now, without fear of derision, aided by the ease of close up photography with even a small compact digital camera, I can openly enjoy the strange beauty to be found in your average fly. This one was the largest fly on ragwort on the dunes behind Goswick Sands at the weekend. The plants were alive with insect life and covered in soldier beetles, flies, bees, hoverflies and of course - typical on the Northumberland coast - cinnabar moth caterpillars by the dozen.

I freely admit to being well out of my comfort zone when it comes to fly identification and will readily accept guidance here. My best shot is that this is a Flesh Fly - one of the blow-fly family.

In looking for information I picked up a fact about bluebottles (another member of the same family) that I never realised. Only the females tend to end up in houses looking for your best joint to spit all over. Males prefer feeding on flowers - just like his male cousin then.