Insect/bug identification please

[MrHappy]

Have never seen one of these before. It's about 1cm across. Any thoughts please?

[soad]

Don't eat it.

[MrHappy]

Hats off to my son. He's identified it as a Swift Lousefly. The swifts arrived at our house within the past two weeks so I guess that's where it came from.

[otolith]

It is indeed a flat fly. Disgusting little bds.

When I was a student, I had house martens nesting outside my window. One morning while standing in my dressing gown enjoying my morning coffee, one of the fking things ran up my leg. I killed it with extreme prejudice - I was a biologist, so while I didn’t know what it was, I had a pretty good idea what it did for a living, all flattened with claws and bitey proboscis. It was a relief to find out what it was and that they don’t bite people, but it gave me the creeps. Kept my window shut for a while!

[Boosted LS1]

I picked up a grounded swift which was destined to die and put it in a cage. One of those things was slithering about under it's feathers. A really disgusting creature. They leave their larvae in the nests to reinfect the swifts when they return, yuk!

[MrHappy]

otolith said:

one of the fking things ran up my leg.

Yep, we only knew it was there when it went up my daughter's leg. Hoping this will be the first and last!