My local park railings have done it again! This time a fly I’d never seen before was sitting there, giving itself a good clean, wiping along its body with some of its many legs.

As I had no idea what this was, I threw it over to the entomologically minded people I follow on social media and within minutes had my answer: one of the Simulium species of black flies. You can read more about them on Wikipedia (not a place I would usually reference but their article is certainly interesting) and I also found a website called Blackfly (it’s flagged as not secure but is packed with information and probably okay for a quick read).

To be honest, rather than learning the name of the fly, I found the reactions to my post the most interesting. One person wrote ‘Itchiest bite ever!!!!!’, which horrified me slightly as I’d had the creature on my finger at one point, and I never react well to insect bites. Another told this story: ‘I was once in a boat nearly a mile out to sea when we spotted a black cloud on the horizon. A billion of these b*ggers landed on us and it was armageddon!’ That may read like a tall tale but people have compared the bites of these flies to those of the bloodthirsty Scottish midges and they are known to transmit diseases so should probably be avoided if at all possible.