ONE of our most common creatures has to be the fly.

From our houses to the biggest of nature reserves, you are sure to come across flies and often in numbers.

The animals we know as flies are insects of the order known as diptera and are characterised as having all the usual insect traits, three parts to their bodies, six legs, antennae but with just the one pair of wings instead of the usual two pairs.

Most of us consider flies to be one of nature’s annoying creatures but there are some 5200 species found in the UK and some of these could, after a rather considered second look, be possibly described as rather pretty but they are nowhere near the league of the butterflies.

To me the best looking flies have to be in the family of the hoverflies.

These delightful and aerobatic flies mimic wasp, and in some species, bees and hence the majority have wonderful distinctive, brightly coloured abdomen, which when combined with their harmless nature and superb flight skills make them a most attractive insect.

The most attractive of all flies have to belong to the horsefly family.

Their bodies are a little drab but a close look reveals they have a rather delicate camouflage pattern but their real beauty lies in their eyes, which have the most fascinating of iridescent colours.

Still, it’s hard to love them as given half a chance they will, with great determination, pursue you with the intention of feeding on your blood. Their bites can be painful and some of the larger species’ bite is likened to being firmly pinched by a set of pliers, and they itch terribly after.

Similarly I have, at times, looked at green bottles with fascination as they have bodies of the most wonderful shade of metallic green but these are also far from harmless.

Fortunately they don’t, as far as I am aware, attack humans but they are a terrible scourge for sheep where their young devour the living sheep’s flesh.

The housefly is also seen as a threat to us humans as it is a very determined animal using its amazing flying skills and lightning reflexes to steal meals at every opportunity, from both our refuge and food.

Here lies the problem as this fly feeds by disgorging digestive fluids onto its intended food and then mopping up the resultant liquid, bacterium an all, so when it lands on our food it transfers any bacterium it has collected from its previous and probably not so salubrious meals onto our food.

Many potentially hazardous pathogens have been proven to be easily spread in this manner by the house fly.

In other countries, flies like the mosquito are the vectors that spread many dangerous human diseases like malaria, yellow fever and sleeping sickness. Many others are serious crop pests but it’s not all bad.

There is a family known as the robber flies that, whilst looking extremely unsightly with large hairy legs, spend their lives catching and feeding on other flies keeping the number of some of the less pleasant species under control.