The State Bird of Louisiana

If April showers bring May flowers, what do August rains bring?  Well, they bring mosquitoes.  Lots and lots of mosquitoes.  One positive thing about a very dry June and July was that there was no water nearby for mosquitoes to lay their eggs, and that meant that although it was hot and dry, you could walk around outside and not be carried away by mosquitoes.  Not anymore.

If you look in the water buckets we have along the drip line of the roof in the back yard to catch rain water, you will see hundreds and hundreds of mosquito larvae swimming around.  According to This Link a single female mosquito can lay between 100 - 300 eggs.  Those eggs hatch and turn into the larvae you see in my bucket below.  Then in 4 to 14 days, depending on water temperature, they go through the full life cycle.

A mosquito can lay between 100 - 300 eggs at one time and between 1,000 to 3,000 eggs in her lifetime.  Although they live for only 2 -3 weeks, they can do a lot of mischief in that short span of time.  I walked through the pasture this afternoon swatting non-stop as clouds of mosquitoes surrounded me, covering my legs as I had shorts on.  Big mistake.  It didn't take long for them to fill with blood.  Only the female mosquitoes bite as they need the blood to develop the eggs.  Darned females! Of course I'd never say any disparaging remarks about human females...

OUCH!

Our local taxes pay the Mosquito Control Board to fly an airplane at night dispensing poison to kill the mosquitoes along with a truck that drives up and down every driveway spraying poison.  This helps keep them in check, but it is theorized that this could be killing some beneficial insects as well as honeybees. Sometimes the most effective thing is just to slap them.

That old girl was full of my blood

Sometimes even when they don't bite you, they'll just annoy you.  There are times when one (or several) will buzz around in our bedroom at night.  You can hear them, but can't see them and you can't go to sleep because you're anticipated them landing on you and biting you.  Some people around here joke and say that the State Bird of Louisiana is the Mosquito, but it is actually the Brown Pelican.  

They're really no joking matter, though, as they carry West Nile Virus and have been known to get so numerous that they'll choke cows and horses.  I have a bug zapper in the barn to combat this when their populations get large, but I'm unsure of how effective it is.  Fortunately, the cows have tails that they use to constantly swat them away.