Revenge is tweet: midges are recycled into bird food

Published on Thursday 13 August 2009 22:09

ONE of Scotland's most irritating occupants has finally been put to good use. The midge, blight of summer holidaymakers across the country, is being recycled as bird food.

The Original Highland Midge Bites each contain about 1,000 of the biting insects – along with beef dripping and flour.

The midges are said to be a good source of protein.

The product is the brainchild of Skye housewife turned entrepreneur Elaine Bunce, who is appealing for millions of "unwanted" midges that have been collected in midge machines throughout the Highlands.

"I am trying to collect as many midges as possible, as it takes about 1,000 to make each ball," said Mrs Bunce, of Castle Estate, Dunvegan. "I researched the matter with bird groups, and they say midges are full of protein.

"I've got about five litres of them in my freezer at the moment – there are trillions of them," she went on. "But I need a lot more. There are not so many about because of the hot summer, and this is a good way to recycle midges.

"I am trialling the product at the moment and hope gradually to roll it out to leading pet shops and suppliers."

Two million midges weigh just a kilo – and one square metre of land will contain about 500,000 of the little biters. Only the females bite.

Midge expert Dr Alison Blackwell said most of the 20 official midge traps throughout Scotland were down on last year – though some were now starting to "pick up".

Some of the midge counters have been recording a few thousand midges in a week, when they would normally be gathering "hundreds of thousands".

"Midges are quite susceptible to dry weather and their survival will go down in a hot, dry summer," said Dr Blackwell.

"Midges like warm and wet weather and not much wind," he added. "Midges also need a blood meal within a week or they will not survive.

"But midges are very resilient. They will sit there in the ground waiting days for their meal. If there is a good spell of midge weather they will come out in force, and some areas are starting to pick up."

The flying midge lives for between two days and two weeks, depending on the weather. During this time the female can lay up to 170 eggs in as many as three batches. In a normal year, there are two to three generations of midges born during the season.

The first batch of midges emerges at the start of the season from their over-wintering in the soil. These quickly bite, mate and lay their eggs. These eggs will then rapidly develop through the full midge-cycle to emerge as adults towards the end of July.

These second generation midges then repeat the bite, mate and lay cycle.

The Scottish tourist industry is estimated to lose about 286 million a year because of the voracious insects.

A previous study carried out by Dr Blackwell found that many tourists said they would not return to Scotland at the same time of year because of midges.