Keeping the horse flies away??? HELP!!

There has been several horse flies that are running our hummingbirds away. How do we get them to leave? We've sat and watched them attack the Hummingbirds when they come up to feed, but everytime we try to get close to the horseflies to spray them with insect killer they fly off. Of course everytime we walk away, they come back and wait for the Hummingbirds. It's so bad that the Hummingbirds can't eat. We've even tried relocating our feeders but that doesn't help either. Is there anything that CAN be done? The horseflies look like dragonflies, but uglier... however you spell that?! HELP PLEASE!

Wow sorry to hear that teresa. I hope someone can help. I don't have horse flies here.

Ohh no:( :( I don't know what to do either! I was really hoping that you or resin could help:(

Maybe Resin can or someone else who has horse flies on a regular basis. If we can't find an answer here I'll check with some other folks for you.

Thank you so so so much pelle!

Hi Teresa, I googled Controlling Horse Flies and came up with a list of sites. This doesn't look like an easy situation and of course anything you use has to be safe around the hummers too.

Here is one page:

http://www.pestproducts.com/horsefly.htm

Here is the results on the search page.

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=controlling+horse+flies&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

I don't see any species of the horsefly on these pages... go to flickr website, and type in texas horseflies and click on the one that shows a picture by vai boy. It should show a horsefly eating another horsefly. It looks like a hairy dragonfly.... if only I knew their scientific name I could probably find how to control them. I may try the home made fly trap though. Not really sure what to do. Thank you so much for helping me pelle. Very thoughtful of you to take the time, I really do appreciate it.

Maybe try Bug Files to look for the specific one?

Sorry, no horse flies here either.

Resin

Could it be a robberfly?
http://www.cirrusimage.com/Flies_robber.htm

Not sure what to do if they keep flying off so you can't spray them. I think I would take my feeders down completely for a little while and maybe they will leave.
There is a story here about half way down about a robberfly trying to eat a hummer.

http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek070901.html

Good luck.

This message was edited Aug 7, 2009 12:33 PM

Eww, they are nasty looking! Red-footed Canibalfly.

yes yes!!! that's it! It is a Red-footed Cannibalfly. I'm so glad that you found it! Ha Ha Ha HHHHHAAAAA, pelletory you're hilarious. Oh that gave me a good laugh, you saying Eww.... oh I feel better now. Thank you so much pestee42, I probably could have never found it if it weren't for you! I had an idea but am alittle worried about the hummingbirds getting trapt on it, but I thought about wrapping the limbs that the horseflies land on with sticky fly paper. Maybe they would get stuck to it and then we could take it down when it gets caught, but I hope the hummers don't land on it. Sound like a good idea... or no?

I would really be afraid the hummers would land on it.

I would be afraid of the hummers landing on it too.

ok, well then I guess I will take the feeders down for a while :( So sad! :===( I still want to read up on 'em alittle more now though, now that I know what they are. Again thank you very much for taking the time to help, it's greatly appreciated.