Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Feast of Insects

Just when you think you have seen it all in terms of insect infestations here, you find there is something more to experience!  It has been a rather strange rainy season this time around with the odd rain interspersed with long periods of dry weather.  Last night we finally had lots of good soaking rain … and all the flying ants decided it was time to come out from underground!! The previous day we had cleaned and prepared one of our guest house units for expected visitors.  I decided to go down and do one more check, and this is what I found at the front door…
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It looked like a wriggling porcupine stuck under the door, but it was a pile of thousands of live flying ants that had congregated and seemed to be trying to get under the door.  It took a lot of spraying with Doom (the common local insecticide) to subdue them enough be able to sweep them away without getting bitten.  (They are not usually very vicious, but they can give a sharp bite if they want to, and they were all over our feet as we worked to clear them away.)
All over the compound the birds were having a feast on millions of other insects that appeared in the rains.  Flocks of egret and weaver birds gorged themselves on the insect buffet!
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CCE Timothy Centre April 24, 2012 056
The large toads that like to hang out on our sidewalk also had a party hopping around gobbling all they could catch.
CCE Timothy Centre April 24, 2012 015
It is rather like living in National Geographic documentary sometimes around here!

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