Thank you, John!

Thank you! I'm now able to read up on it and learn more. We have a lot of wild birds including turkeys, so plenty of hosts here.
Jeanne

If it is in my suggested genera, it is a parasite of even-toed ungulates. One species eats deer, for example.

I just received an e-mail from a friend who illustrated ant anatomy for a published book and she also suggested deer louse. Specifically, she suggests Lipoptena cervi. The White-tail deer do bed down in the grasses of the pond I was photographing in yesterday.

What fun!

If the internet is to be believed, L. cervi lacks the prominent dark spot on each wing. It is present in Neolipoptena ferrisi and may or may not be present in other Lipoptena.

Thanks for sharing this info, John. I think that these flies have become something of a pest for humans around Spokane in recent years. If this is the same thing, we have been bitten by an unseen deer fly in the Spring. Usually, the bite is located on the back of the neck, near the hair line. I didn't make the connection at first.

While my friend first noticed them years ago, I first experienced the bites four or five years ago.

Thanks,
Jeanne

Aren't these flies fairly host specific? The flies apparently shed their wings after locating a host, so I rather doubt these are biting people.

Ben, I just completed a search for local newspaper articles regarding biting deer flies and found that these are in reference to a 'black fly'. The only photo they carried showed the fly with a full and swollen abdomen, but I don't think it matched my photo subject at all. They did not give scientific names, of course. You are probably correct, that the epidemic of neck bites here in the inland northwest does not relate to our subject fly.

Thanks,
Jeanne

Looks like Hippoboscidae to me, maybe Lipoptena or Neolipoptena. I don't think we have any experts.