They may have been slow in coming but midges have now bitten into summer with a ‘perfect swam’ vengeance – as these pictures show.
More than 100 people have volunteered to be official midge count recorders after a nationwide hunt was launched. A map has now been produced to show the location of the counters – who range from the Borders to the Butt of Lewis and Orkney.
But one recorder in Lochaber left his arm untreated with midge repellent and it was soon covered by hundreds of the biting beasties.
The workers provide information for the official Scottish Midge Forecast.
Each volunteer is provided with their own “Midge Watch Kit” and asked to send data back on a regular basis between June and August.
“Midge Watch is also going well,” said Dr Alison Blackwell, who runs the Scottish Midge Forecast. “The midge season has suddenly exploded this week.
“We have over 100 people signed up from across Scotland. They are using small ‘sticky’ traps as surveillance tools, with the aim of getting a snap-shot of the midge population across the country at any one time.
“Some folk are catching a lot and others less but this is the point of the project – to map midges on as localised scale as possible. The traps are being photographed and we are developing image-analysis software to accurately record the number of midges, as opposed to any other insects.
“The midge season had been delayed this year by the cold weather but this week our traps are recording high numbers with our North West Trap breaking its catch record and our Argyll trap full to the brim. In fact they lost count!”
The portable trap includes a midge-attracting odour and removable sticky section to snare the biting beasties.
The midge watchers will photograph twice a week the midges caught in the trap and send the pictures to the Scottish Midge Forecast.
It will be able to calculate the number of midges in the photographs by using special digitalised software.
The cost of the traps and software have come out of the £22,441 grant from Innovate UK given to Dr Blackwell’s company Dundee-based APS Biocontrol Limited.
The online midge forecast is now in its eleventh year, providing people with daily information about the likely intensity of biting midge activity in any part of Scotland.
The Scottish tourism industry is estimated to lose about £286 million-a -year because of the voracious and swarming insects.
A previous study also found that many tourists said they would not return to Scotland at the same time of year because of the biting beastie.
Two million midges weigh just a kilo – and one square metre of land will contain about 500,000 of the insects. Only the female bites.
The flying midge lives for between two days and two weeks depending on weather conditions. During this time the female can lay up to 170 eggs in as much as three batches. In a normal year there are two to three generation of midges born during the season.