{"id":1155,"date":"2010-05-18T12:33:28","date_gmt":"2010-05-18T12:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/?p=1155"},"modified":"2022-08-26T08:33:17","modified_gmt":"2022-08-26T08:33:17","slug":"blandford-fly-for-a-white-guy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/2010\/05\/blandford-fly-for-a-white-guy\/","title":{"rendered":"Blandford fly for a white guy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Best Beloved’s web diligence and some subsequent google-fu has revealed a likely culprit for\u00a0the bites<\/a>:\u00a0Blandford Fly<\/a>\u00a0(not\u00a0the beer<\/a>). Looking at that and\u00a0other<\/a>\u00a0\/\u00a0links<\/a>shows a lot of matches. Small, black flies 2-3mm in length? Check (there were a lot them about). Oxfordshire? Check. Bites predominantly, indeed exclusively on lower legs? Check. Above all the descriptions of the bite sound about right, apart from the fact that I didn’t feel anything until it was too late. Maybe weeding is such an itchy process anyway that I just tuned it out. Hmm: not disease carriers (good) but secondary infections are possible (bad) …<\/p>\n

For what it’s worth the red patches are consolidating, shrinking a little and turning more purple. I spent most of yesterday tired and cold and was in bed by 9, which was probably a reaction to several gallons of toxin in my bloodstream but not quite enough to warrant taking time off work.<\/p>\n

Apparently the biters would all have been female, requiring a blood meal before or after mating to produce hundreds of eggs. I’ve never before been swarmed by sex-crazed females and it’s a shame that when it finally happens they all turn out to be insects, but I’m glad I could perform a service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Best Beloved’s web diligence and some subsequent google-fu has revealed a likely culprit for\u00a0the bites:\u00a0Blandford Fly\u00a0(not\u00a0the beer). Looking at that and\u00a0other\u00a0\/\u00a0linksshows a lot of matches. Small, black flies 2-3mm in length? Check (there were a lot them about). Oxfordshire? Check. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[165,166,20],"class_list":["post-1155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bens-life","tag-bites","tag-insects","tag-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1155"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3998,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155\/revisions\/3998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}