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June 9,1998
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little black bugsWell, the starlings woke me up at 5:00 AM again, but that wasn't the worst of it. I went over to the air conditioner to peer through the crack and found streams of little black bugs coming from the nest. They were in clusters all over the windowsill, part of the wall, the a/c unit itself. They're so little they look like dots, punctuation marks. All I can think of is Ohmigod they're ticks. Part of me wanted to get a microscope to look at them and figure out what they are and part of me wanted to call an exterminator immediately. How do I get rid of this river of tiny black bugs without killing the starlings? Does it matter at this point? Do they have some horrid disease that will kill me and Wilbur? Now what do I do? So I went to therapy and spent my whole hour talking about how incompetent I feel to deal with the little black bugs. My therapist suggested Raid. I bought lunch at the EarthFood store, ate it at Starbucks with my coffee, and headed to the hardware store for Raid or something like it. I browsed among products for killing white flies and mealy bugs, ants, bees and wasps, fleas, tomato horn worms, thrips, everything except these tiny little black things. I mentioned to another shopper in the same aisle how hard it is to select poison to kill something when you don't know what it is. She suggested collecting some and taking them to McClay's garden center for identification and recommendation. I collected hordes of them on some clear plastic tape, feeling creepy crawly the whole time, and drove up to McClay's. The guy there looked at them and said he had no idea what they were and asked me what they were on. I told him they were coming in through the air conditioner. He looked stricken. He lectured me about not using toxic pesticides in my house, especially in the air conditioner. I wasn't planning to but he didn't give me space to get a word in edgewise. Finally, he recommended a house and garden bug spray made from chrysanthemums that was the least toxic thing available. Little black things weren't on the bottle as one of the pests it covers, but I figured I'd try it. Back home I sprayed the stuff on the wall, windowsill, air conditioner, baseboard radiator, carpet, everything nearby, and closed the bedroom door to keep Wilbur away from the poison just in case. Awhile later I tried to pick up the dead bodies with tape. I pulled some of the paint off the windowsill. I'm not convinced I picked up all the dead ones - which black spots are dirt or scratches and which are dead little black bugs? And I saw one lone live one crawling around on the air conditioner. I put tape over where they seemed to be coming from. At this point I don't know whether I should call an exterminator or not. later that same day...I decided to escape to clear my head with a little birding at Plum Island. I saw 4 willets putting on quite a show in the air, 2 mute swans (what are they doing on the refuge?), an eastern kingbird, and a warbler I couldn't identify. The best sighting though was a mother and baby killdeer. They were really close to the side of the road and I had a perfect view of the fuzzy little chick looking off balance on its full size legs with its baby sized, round, fuzzy body. Its call was distinctly killdeer-like but weak - like it has to grow bigger before it can make the call sound full-sized. The mother did not do the broken wing distraction display but did call a lot. On the way back a deer walked nonchalantly right in front of my car. I was only going 15 mph so it was no problem, but it was still a little unsettling. I mean this deer was less than 10 feet from my car. If I'd been going 30 mph I might have had trouble stopping. It vanished into the brush on the other side of the road. I also had to stop for a group of 4 chipmunks chasing each other and squabbling in the middle of the road. Some people in a broke down car flagged me down to ask for help. Miraculously, when I got to the gatehouse, law enforcement (Chris) was just driving up. I flagged him down and told him where the vehicle was. Gee, I felt almost like I was on duty and I was only there for recreation! back at home...I had this genius idea while I was driving home. I can seal up all the cracks around the air conditioner with plastic tape to keep the bugs out if anymore come in. I cleaned up all the dead ones with tape - far easier than trying to pick up anything that small with my fingers and a lot safer than sweeping them. Maybe I can survive this invasion without professional help. |
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