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Brine flies can be intimidating because of their massive numbers\u00a0but they are truly innocuous.\u00a0\u00a0 They are found only within a few feet of the shore, they don’t bite and won’t even land on humans.\u00a0 And they’re a huge nutritional resource for birds.<\/p>\n In the photo above, the blurry brown bits in the background are brine flies in flight that have been stirred up by the feeding California Gull.\u00a0 Different bird species have varying feeding methods with these flies – this species often stakes out a few feet of feeding territory on the shoreline and then rushes through the hordes of flies on the sand, stirring them up, and then snaps them out of the air in large numbers.\u00a0 This bird is looking down the shoreline and preparing for\u00a0its next run on the flies.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0Most of the flies are resting on the sand until the bird makes its run.\u00a0 As the gull rushes along the shoreline\u00a0the flies are disturbed into the air and the bird snaps up as many as it can.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0Sometimes the gulls will raise their wings as they run forward, in an obvious attempt to scare up more flies for the meal.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0This angle on the action gives one an idea of how many flies a gull might get in just one gulp.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0At times the\u00a0flies are so incredibly thick that\u00a0parts of the\u00a0gull\u00a0are almost completely obscured by them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0Various species have different feeding methods.\u00a0 Franklin’s Gulls generally don’t rush forward to scare up hordes of flies.\u00a0 Instead they tend to stand in place and\u00a0just pluck them out of the air a few at a time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Brine flies have an interesting and complex life cycle.\u00a0 \u00a0During summer the female lays her eggs on the surface of the water.\u00a0 The eggs hatch into larvae which spend the winter on the lake bottom in an inactive state.\u00a0 In the spring they feed mostly on cyanobacteria (one of the few life forms that can survive the very high salinity of the lake).\u00a0 When water temperature becomes warm enough the larvae metamorphose by growing a hard brown pupal case around their bodies.\u00a0 Inside that pupal case they begin to transform into adult flies.\u00a0 When the adults emerge from the pupal case they rise to the water surface and fly to the shoreline.\u00a0\u00a0These adults\u00a0live for only a few short days, just long enough to mate and lay eggs.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n The pupal cases also come to the surface and are blown into large rafts on the surface.\u00a0 In the image above you can see rafts of these pupal cases about to be blown on to shore.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0These are the thick mats of pupal cases that have blown onto the shore of the Antelope Island causeway.\u00a0 There are also millions of adult flies on top of the mats.\u00a0 The lake has about 335 miles of shoreline so you can imagine how many flies it supports.\u00a0 Biologists have estimated\u00a0that number to be roughly 100 billion!\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0Here’s a closer look at a handful of pupal cases.\u00a0 You can also see a few newly hatched pale adults among the cases.\u00a0 The adult flies soon become darker in color.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"california-gull-2373\"](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/california-gull-2373.jpg\" "\\"california-gull-2373\\"")
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