As the sun rose, I spread my small wings, I let them dry for a few seconds and admired their beautiful iridescence. I love the morning, when the sun is just above the horizon, and I can sit and see everything around me. There are trees, people, and most of all flowers. I consider myself to be the luckiest flower fly in the whole world because I live in the flower garden at the local college. There are thousands of flowers, and tons of nectar in them! I especially like the flowers that are flat and yellow. This garden is heaven, and I love spending my days here!
Every morning, I like to fly about halfway up the building closest to the flower garden and watch the sunshine on the flowers. This morning the sunrise was orange, it was beautiful, thick, and glorious. While I was watching the garden, I noticed a person with a bright red shirt walking into the building. She was carrying a beautiful basket of flowers. There were daisies and daffodils, two of my favorites. I decided that I should fly down to see how good the flowers smelled. Once I was close to them, it was amazing. This lady must’ve enhanced their odor because they were nearly intoxicating. I felt so overwhelmed that I just dived right in. I was hungry already, and I couldn’t stand how amazing it smelled.
These flowers were amazing. I drank the nectar of three of them and felt like I might not be able to fly anymore. I was stuffed. When I started to climb out of the flower, I felt different. It was colder than it had been before. I could sense it. As I emerged from the daffodil, I realized that the worst possible event had occurred. As I was enjoying the basket of flowers, I was transported inside of the building beside the garden. This is where flies come to die. It is designed as a death trap for bugs in general. Once you’re in, you can never get out. I quickly realized that this was going to be the worst, and possibly the last day of my life.
My biggest goal as I am leaving the basket is finding a way out of the room that I am in. One of the perks of being a flower fly is that I have huge eyes. I see an open door behind me. In the matter of two seconds, I have flown from the flowers and I have perched on the far wall of the hallway. I see people walking in one direction and no one in the other. I decide that I should avoid the people and fly down the empty hallway. When I am outside, when I am free, my coloring makes me a threat that should be avoided, but when I am inside the fact that I look like a bee makes me scary. When people get scared, they lash out. If I get too close to one of them, I could be in a lot of trouble. Most people swat at me before they realize that I cannot harm them. I need to escape fast!
If only, I could find the exit. I fly, and I reach the end of the hallway. There were no open doors, there was nothing there. I need to retrace my steps and see if I can find another way out. I find a door that seems like it could be the right one, and I walk on its bottom to get to the other side. This leads me to another room. I decide it would be best to fly to the ceiling to see what I should do. From the ceiling, I see the flowers! I can see my beautiful home. I feel relief that I was able to escape this prison! I am flying straight for the flowers as fast as I can but then I am stopped. I smash into something. I must have hit a window. I fall straight down and land on the sill. As I recover, I look around and I see the bodies of my family. There are dozens of fly carcasses laying here. I must be luckier than these insects, I must not have flown as hard as they did, or maybe I have a harder head than they did.
I need to rethink my strategy. Maybe there is a crack around the window that I can get through. I begin to work my way around the window. I scale three sides of the window with no luck. Once I begin working on the fourth side, I notice that there is a warm spot. In the warm spot, I find a crack in the seal that sits between the window frame and the window. It is small, but I think that I may be able to squeeze my way through. The warm air around me reassures me that I am making the right move. I fold my wings as tightly as I can and press through the miniscule gap. The gap provides less of a struggle than I expected, and I escape the building that I expected to be my demise.
I decide that I should head immediately for the flowers. I dive into my garden with speed and excitement. I land on the closest flower to me and it feels like a bed of feathers. The flowers and the open air allow me to leave the activities of the early morning behind me. I decide to refuel, visiting some of my favorite flowers and attempting to ingest as much nectar as I can. I run into a few other hover flies and brush wings against some females. I can tell that they are females because they have smaller eyes than I do, and their eyes have a bigger gap between them.
Although there are males and females present right now, there is no mating happening in the garden. We hover flies have a special superpower that a lot of species don’t. We are able to turn off our reproductive systems when the environment does not have enough nutrition for our offspring. We know that we are in a good place for mating when we smell a special scent in the air that is produced by the plants. Hover fly offspring usually eat aphids in their larval stages and we can remove large infestations of these small pests from gardens. Because of the way that this garden is maintained by the people here, there are not enough pests in the garden for us to eat.
After a substantial amount of time had passed that included me savoring the flower garden, a few of the other flies started hovering around together like they were about to go somewhere exciting. I decided to see what all of the fuss was about and followed them. We headed in the direction of the sports campus of the college. I could see why the other flies were so excited as soon as I got close to the stadium. There was a sports practice going on. One of our favorite past times is to hover around and land on the sweaty athletes and to drink the salty sweat from their skin. Although it can be dangerous to land on people because they may attempt to kill us, a lot of athletes don’t notice us because they are so focused on what they are doing. This is why we love being around the sports campus. There are always athletes and spectators eating concessions. It is basically Christmas every day around here.
When a couple of the other hover flies and I were snacking on some sweet drinks that were disposed in the trash, a person threw away a small wrapper for something that they were eating, and we followed that person because they were really sweaty. I think that this was probably a mistake because the person did not seem to be in the best mood. When a couple of flies landed on the person, she started swatting at them, putting them in extreme danger. Luckily their big eyes allowed them to react before they were killed. I was hovering around the person’s body when she tried to clap me. With some quick movement, I evaded the maneuver and found safety. The lady must have been very agitated by us because she continued to swat and clap at us. Eventually one of the flies in the group landed on the lady’s leg, just resting for a moment, and she smashed her hand down on him quickly. He didn’t stand a chance to escape. When we realized that this person meant business, we eventually left the sports complex to return to the garden for the evening.
I returned to the garden as the sun was setting over the flowers. I decided to rest among the flowers and some of my fellow flies before settling down for the night. This day was crazy, and I could have never expected the events that occurred today to come to fruition. It was a long day that I was lucky to survive. I am glad that I have returned to my garden and I can’t imagine what may have happened if I had remained inside of the school building or if I had been destroyed by the lady at the sports stadium. I decide to enjoy a bit of the sweet nectar from the most attractive flowers of the garden and I allow my mind to rest before anticipating the trials that tomorrow will bring.
REFERENCES:
https://www.beethechangehoney.com/blog/2019/7/29/pollinator-of-the-month-hoverfly
https://www.vulcantermite.com/pest-profiles/bugs-get-cold/
https://www.growveg.com/beneficial-insects/us-and-canada/hoverfly/
http://www.therepublic.com/2016/08/13/annoying_but_not_harmful/
Every morning, I like to fly about halfway up the building closest to the flower garden and watch the sunshine on the flowers. This morning the sunrise was orange, it was beautiful, thick, and glorious. While I was watching the garden, I noticed a person with a bright red shirt walking into the building. She was carrying a beautiful basket of flowers. There were daisies and daffodils, two of my favorites. I decided that I should fly down to see how good the flowers smelled. Once I was close to them, it was amazing. This lady must’ve enhanced their odor because they were nearly intoxicating. I felt so overwhelmed that I just dived right in. I was hungry already, and I couldn’t stand how amazing it smelled.
These flowers were amazing. I drank the nectar of three of them and felt like I might not be able to fly anymore. I was stuffed. When I started to climb out of the flower, I felt different. It was colder than it had been before. I could sense it. As I emerged from the daffodil, I realized that the worst possible event had occurred. As I was enjoying the basket of flowers, I was transported inside of the building beside the garden. This is where flies come to die. It is designed as a death trap for bugs in general. Once you’re in, you can never get out. I quickly realized that this was going to be the worst, and possibly the last day of my life.
My biggest goal as I am leaving the basket is finding a way out of the room that I am in. One of the perks of being a flower fly is that I have huge eyes. I see an open door behind me. In the matter of two seconds, I have flown from the flowers and I have perched on the far wall of the hallway. I see people walking in one direction and no one in the other. I decide that I should avoid the people and fly down the empty hallway. When I am outside, when I am free, my coloring makes me a threat that should be avoided, but when I am inside the fact that I look like a bee makes me scary. When people get scared, they lash out. If I get too close to one of them, I could be in a lot of trouble. Most people swat at me before they realize that I cannot harm them. I need to escape fast!
If only, I could find the exit. I fly, and I reach the end of the hallway. There were no open doors, there was nothing there. I need to retrace my steps and see if I can find another way out. I find a door that seems like it could be the right one, and I walk on its bottom to get to the other side. This leads me to another room. I decide it would be best to fly to the ceiling to see what I should do. From the ceiling, I see the flowers! I can see my beautiful home. I feel relief that I was able to escape this prison! I am flying straight for the flowers as fast as I can but then I am stopped. I smash into something. I must have hit a window. I fall straight down and land on the sill. As I recover, I look around and I see the bodies of my family. There are dozens of fly carcasses laying here. I must be luckier than these insects, I must not have flown as hard as they did, or maybe I have a harder head than they did.
I need to rethink my strategy. Maybe there is a crack around the window that I can get through. I begin to work my way around the window. I scale three sides of the window with no luck. Once I begin working on the fourth side, I notice that there is a warm spot. In the warm spot, I find a crack in the seal that sits between the window frame and the window. It is small, but I think that I may be able to squeeze my way through. The warm air around me reassures me that I am making the right move. I fold my wings as tightly as I can and press through the miniscule gap. The gap provides less of a struggle than I expected, and I escape the building that I expected to be my demise.
I decide that I should head immediately for the flowers. I dive into my garden with speed and excitement. I land on the closest flower to me and it feels like a bed of feathers. The flowers and the open air allow me to leave the activities of the early morning behind me. I decide to refuel, visiting some of my favorite flowers and attempting to ingest as much nectar as I can. I run into a few other hover flies and brush wings against some females. I can tell that they are females because they have smaller eyes than I do, and their eyes have a bigger gap between them.
Although there are males and females present right now, there is no mating happening in the garden. We hover flies have a special superpower that a lot of species don’t. We are able to turn off our reproductive systems when the environment does not have enough nutrition for our offspring. We know that we are in a good place for mating when we smell a special scent in the air that is produced by the plants. Hover fly offspring usually eat aphids in their larval stages and we can remove large infestations of these small pests from gardens. Because of the way that this garden is maintained by the people here, there are not enough pests in the garden for us to eat.
After a substantial amount of time had passed that included me savoring the flower garden, a few of the other flies started hovering around together like they were about to go somewhere exciting. I decided to see what all of the fuss was about and followed them. We headed in the direction of the sports campus of the college. I could see why the other flies were so excited as soon as I got close to the stadium. There was a sports practice going on. One of our favorite past times is to hover around and land on the sweaty athletes and to drink the salty sweat from their skin. Although it can be dangerous to land on people because they may attempt to kill us, a lot of athletes don’t notice us because they are so focused on what they are doing. This is why we love being around the sports campus. There are always athletes and spectators eating concessions. It is basically Christmas every day around here.
When a couple of the other hover flies and I were snacking on some sweet drinks that were disposed in the trash, a person threw away a small wrapper for something that they were eating, and we followed that person because they were really sweaty. I think that this was probably a mistake because the person did not seem to be in the best mood. When a couple of flies landed on the person, she started swatting at them, putting them in extreme danger. Luckily their big eyes allowed them to react before they were killed. I was hovering around the person’s body when she tried to clap me. With some quick movement, I evaded the maneuver and found safety. The lady must have been very agitated by us because she continued to swat and clap at us. Eventually one of the flies in the group landed on the lady’s leg, just resting for a moment, and she smashed her hand down on him quickly. He didn’t stand a chance to escape. When we realized that this person meant business, we eventually left the sports complex to return to the garden for the evening.
I returned to the garden as the sun was setting over the flowers. I decided to rest among the flowers and some of my fellow flies before settling down for the night. This day was crazy, and I could have never expected the events that occurred today to come to fruition. It was a long day that I was lucky to survive. I am glad that I have returned to my garden and I can’t imagine what may have happened if I had remained inside of the school building or if I had been destroyed by the lady at the sports stadium. I decide to enjoy a bit of the sweet nectar from the most attractive flowers of the garden and I allow my mind to rest before anticipating the trials that tomorrow will bring.
REFERENCES:
https://www.beethechangehoney.com/blog/2019/7/29/pollinator-of-the-month-hoverfly
https://www.vulcantermite.com/pest-profiles/bugs-get-cold/
https://www.growveg.com/beneficial-insects/us-and-canada/hoverfly/
http://www.therepublic.com/2016/08/13/annoying_but_not_harmful/