Canny Granny

Summer is i-cumen in –/ Lhude sing, blowfly!/ Groweth sed and bloweth med/ And springth the wude nu./ Sing, blowfly!

Today I heard the first blow-fly of Summer.

While people in other climes use swallows to signify the warmer season, here we know the date by the humblie blowie. Ugly though this creature is, it signifies all of the delights that bound in with Summer.

Members of this unattractive family are known as bluebottles, clusterflies, greenbottles, and (in Britain and Australia) as blue-arsed flies. The name blow-fly comes from an older English term for meat that had eggs laid on it, which was said to be fly blown. (maggotty)

If you really need to know, the eggs are yellowish or white, and when laid, look like rice balls. The female blow-fly typically lays around 2,000 eggs during the course of her life. Watch out for little rice balls in your lamb sandwich.

Apparently the natural life history of the blowflies remains a largely untapped body of research. I hope it stays that way.

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