[summer '85]

Annoying little creatures, they are. You put your washing out and they are on it, you are in the garden and they are on you.

[Nigel Bolton]

In northwest Essex we knew them as 'thunderbugs', as they were supposed to be at their worst during thundery weather.

Little black flies about 2mm long and 1/4mm wide, able to get into anything, and will be found dead months later behind paintings etc. They do not bite, but in large numbers can literally tickle you to death.

It was a particularly bad year in 1981. Was working on a building site that year, and one day, they got so bad that everyone was sent home. There were so many flies, that they actually reduced the visibility, and coated some surfaces so they were almost black. Perhaps most alarmingly, they made it difficult to breath because as they were inhaled into the nose, they made you sneeze, or if you breathed through your mouth, they became stuck to tonsils etc, making you cough. It was horrible.

They were the last of a series of insect plagues. It was ants in 1973, grasshoppers in 1974, ladybirds in 1976, greenfly in 1979 and 1980, and then thunderbugs in 1981. I cannot remember any more insect plagues, until 1995, when we were overwhelmed by wasps.

N.

[Paul Radon]

I never knew they were called corn flies.

Summer 2006 was particularly bad here, all of the flat screen monitors & tv's in the house had lots of the little blighters crawling all over the screen within the layers. Very annoying grrr.

[Nigel Bolton]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrips

N.

[Dave K]

I always called them thrips - corn flies was confusing the heck out of me 8-)

[Howard Kirby]

They get inside picture frames too...and just stay there.

[Adam D]

Quote

Nigel Bolton - 25/7/2011 17:59

In northwest Essex we knew them as 'thunderbugs', as they were supposed to be at their worst during thundery weather.

We used to call them the same thing when I lived down in Somerset.

Don't get many of them up here in Scotland. 

[Paul Radon]

Is there any particular reason that they are more abundant during thundery weather?