Termites à la carte

[brewmaster15]

A few years ago we got hit with a small tornado out here in my area..It really wrecked alot of trees. On a pond I visit alot there was a stand of white pine trees that now pretty much a pile of busted up rotting wood. Kind of sad but mother nature wastes nothing. I was hoping I would see some good woodpeckers or maybe osprey sitting on them when I visited today. That was not the case. What I did get was bugs everywhere. My timing was not great I thought. All that dead wood was loaded with termites and I was there to witness the queens being pushed from the nests and out into the wild blue yonder.There were just termites streaming out of wood everywhere. Gross right? well maybe I guess it would be if you weren't ok with bugs. Those termite queens though were a literal feast for the area birds though. I got to witness ovenBirds, American Robins, Eastern kingbirds ( a fly catcher), Grey Catbirds, and even Blue Jays going after them. Most memorable was the BlueJay.It was just sitting on an old log and going to town..


Bon appetite..

Termites à la carte by Al Sabetta, on Flickr

Termites à la carte by Al Sabetta, on Flickr

Termites à la carte by Al Sabetta, on Flickr

Termites à la carte by Al Sabetta, on Flickr

Termites à la carte by Al Sabetta, on Flickr

[brewmaster15]

Catbird was also in on the buffet...

Gray catbird (Dumetella carolinensis) by Al Sabetta, on Flickr

oven bird was in the mix too..

Ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapilla) by Al Sabetta, on Flickr

American Robin was at the table too...

American robin (Turdus migratorius) by Al Sabetta, on Flickr

American robin (Turdus migratorius) with termite by Al Sabetta, on Flickr

[LizStreithorst]

The blue jay was impressive. They're such pretty birds. I wish they didn't have such bad habits.

[brewmaster15]

Thanks Liz,
I really feel like the gods were smiling on me for the shots. Truly life shots when I think of it. Termites swarm once a year or even less frequently . When they do this they push out the winged queens from the nest.. the holes they exit from are then blocked and guarded by soldier termites to prevent new queens from re-entering. This also happens with the reproductive males. These swarms occur around the same time as neighboring colonies which helps maintain genetic diversity.

I watched a swarm exit a log and hundreds of queens left that log in minutes. To be there at that moment in time and when birds found the swarm exiting... that really was luck. Its highly unlikely given the rarity and unpredictability of the event that I will ever witness and photograph it again.

Al