by Sue McGrath
Ipswich's Great Neck was home prior to my heading off to the Peace Corps, and I had a stunning view of Parker River National Wildlife Refuge and Sandy Point from our living room window.
In 1981, while in The Gambia, West Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I received Kitty Crockett Robertson's “Measuring Time – by an hourglass” as a Christmas gift. I met Kitty several times in my Ipswich days, and she was a columnist for the “Ipswich Chronicle”.
In Kitty's book, she states that Ipswich natives raised on the fringes of the salt marsh, know about Greenheads. Kitty's essay “A Native Knows About Greenheads” talks about these blood thirsty flies ~ “To spare the horses and ourselves, we did the haying sometimes by the light of the full moon, that magic time of black and silver, black trees and shadows, silver fields, and flooded marshes at the time of the neap tide.” “The horses and the cows stayed in their stalls, let out to graze only at night or on foggy days when the greenheads sulk among the salt grasses.”
The Greenhead is about 7/8-1 1/8” long, light brown in color with brilliant green eyes, a reddish brown thorax and abdomen. The wings have markings along the leading edge. They are found throughout the Eastern U.S., west to the Mississippi River and in eastern Texas, as well as in southern Canada. Some people refer to the Greenhead as a “salt marsh horse fly”.
The salt marsh greenhead fly, Tabanus nigrovittatus, is abundant and bothersome in July in our coastal marshes. Because the females bite during daylight and occur in large numbers and attack persistently, they interfere with the enjoyment of coastal areas throughout much of the month. To anyone who has not visited the Newburyport coastal areas during “fly season”, the impact of these flies on daytime activities is hard to imagine. Greenhead fly populations reach peak numbers during July but extend from late June into early August.
I had an array of bothersome pests as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and for me, the Greenheads are seasonal, irritant pests of the salt marsh. I love the Refuge but not in July. Mrs. Robertson's essay, “A Native Knows About Greenheads”, is an annual read for me, and this year we're not conducting any programs on the Refuge in July, and I know you're grateful for that decision after reading this...