Anyone seeing a lot of billy witches this year?

[rosebud5678]

If you live in Suffolk you will know the horror to which I refer...my daughter says several of her friends have had them flying into their bedrooms in the evenings. They properly Freak Me Out. Anyone?

Haven't seen any this year but we had an invasion of them a few years back. For about three days the things were everywhere, getting in the house and being noisy buzzy and even my cat was freaked out and she loves an insect snack.

I was curious about the name, so tried to find out where it came from and found this:

The cockchafer may have got its most common name from a mixture of "cock" as in familiar, such as "cock-sparrow", and "chafer" from "cefer" or "kaefer", a gnawing beetle, but others may have ruder, less prosaic definitions.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jun/05/torch-bearing-cockchafer-wenlock-edge

One of these was in my friends room at uni. It completely freaked us out as she was on e 3rd floor and there was a banging at the window...opened curtain to see this massive thing banging against the glass trying to get out.

Of course we screamed and one of our male housemates had to come and put it out.

I had never seen an insect that size. Couldn't believe it was big enough to bang the window!

I have never seen or heard of these before, and I am slightly perturbed a pp has seen them in SE London where we are. I really don't want to have to deal with catching one, the giant bumblebees I've bee dealing with are difficult enough to catch.

But they can be cute:

www.buglife.org.uk/bugs-and-habitats/common-cockchafer

Interestingly different experiences here...That photo is undoubtedly cute - it's the random out of control flying that's the game changer. If it just stayed on the ground I'd happily hold one, pet it, possibly give it a name...
Thanks to this thread my room 101 is now set in a wood.

I've just Googled them and they're actually quite cute 😍.

When i read that i knew i’d heard that name before. I grew up in Cambridge and left when i was 19, nearly 30 years ago..totally forgotten about them...and have been in Surrey/Sussex since. Thanks for nostalgia trip op, and sorry they’re bugging you!! They’re freaky for sure.

One year we are having a barbecue and it had got dark and we were all sat in the back garden with the lights of the kitchen on so we could see. Anyway the next thing some of us felt things hitting our legs and we were literally bombarded by these huge brown beetles they were hitting the windows,us, flying in the kitchen and hitting walls it was truly terrifying!
Especially for the ones that may have been a little stoned
Do you think that's what they were? I don't remember any cute fury ears though...

Holy shit, they're big and ugly. I hope they don't start venturing north with the warm weather. A quick Google says if they get in your hair you have to cut your hair to get them out, is that right?

One flew into my hair last summer. I thought it was a wasp and freaked out. It was right by my ear on the underside. Kept buzzing louder and louder, my friend had to help pull it out, it was not pleasant.