Here is a sample of the window sills that are on my second floor. This is a somewhat lower death count than normal. This is what will show up an hour after vacuuming corpses.
Please ignore my cracked paint. Like most farmers, the barn takes priority when it comes to projects and the house is second. Someday the window sills will be repainted...someday.
Cluster flies are the worlds densest fly species. After a little internet research I found that cluster flies pray on the hapless earth worm. The adults lay their eggs in freshly tilled fields and when the earthworm wriggles to the surface to have a look around, the young attach themselves and consume the innocent worm. Completing the cycle for more zombie cluster flies in my window sills!
These flies once inside seem to gather with all their friends in the warm light of window sills or when the sun sets the bedroom reading lamp or the bathroom light! These flies buzz aimlessly around or even worse they lay motionless and then revive for a few more buzzes when the wind catches them as you rush past a window. Sometimes they will lay motionless for hours, then they get the bright idea to fly up to the window again for a second look. Then back to the floor they fall again, where they may spin around on their backs for a bit and then play dead for a day or two.
There has been more than one occasion that I have bent down to pick up a seemingly dead fly when I find he has a few more good buzzes left in him. Or when I pull out the Dyson rechargeable mini vac and quite literally vacuum up 100's of these nuisance flies by chasing them all over the window as they continue to give it a few more good buzzes in the canister. I know somewhat cruel but really they are flies after all! The really perplexing thing about cluster flies is that at any point in their life, they can appear to be dead, half dead, almost dead or nearly dead, but, like zombies, they never quite expire!
If you are the last one to turn out the light you are pretty much assured to have a few flies careening around within your lamp shade. Bouncing around within the shade at speeds that sound fast enough that the zombie should have multiple concussions or 3rd degree burns from the light bulb. But instead the nuisance fly will just fall to the night table half dead to cool off and lay motionless waiting for you to turn off the light so it can buzz into your hair!
I couldn't find any rewarding evidence that mother nature created this stupid fly with any interesting abilities. Not like a mosquito who transmits disease or even the common house fly which has a level of intelligence to at least bother dinner guests at mealtime. This nuisance fly is quite simply just food for the birds and an annoyance to the farm house owner!
