Appreciation (29) … Ant flurries, or termites?

Appreciation (29) … Ant flurries, or termites?
Torrey Orton
Oct 5, 2010


We were walking the local hills on the first real day of spring. That is, the first day two plus layers were not required on top by the effects of wind-chill at 15 degrees C or less (which is what we've had at sea level for three months straight). An hour and a half into the ramble, we were on the home stretch of a circle route around what passes for a water course with falls here. It had two virtues: it was 50 minutes from home and there was audible and visible water in it. And, we had not been there for 10 years or so, having given ourselves over to more highly invested (in time and distance) wanders to find ramble-worthy spots. Particularly lately, there are quite a few with major water and falls*.

 
As we were coming down a modest decline I noticed to the left of the path a small flurry of fluttering things which on first look I thought were spring seeds in dispersal flight. They were rising on a slight breeze – not enough to sustain the visible activity. But the numbers were constant and dense enough to seem, in some long unexercised memory of things past, a snowlike event.

 
A silly perception in fact since the temperature was 23C. Less silly in their mimicking the wandering rise and fall of big-flake snow in quiet winter air. The storm effect was intensified be a mid afternoon sun highlighting the individuals in its 45 degree rays.

 
So, I looked more around than up and spotted 10 meters off the track a termite-looking mound on which the storm seemed to centre. Only getting closer did I see the newly winged ones walking up the brownish, one meter mound from its base. They were slowly unlimbering their wings as they climbed, ending with a preparatory flap or two before jumping off on their one-way ticket wedding flights. It was one of those wonders of nature so far from my understanding that I'm still not sure who they were - ants or termites – partly because I did not know to look for the distinguishing differences!


* A week earlier we had visited one of the rivers burned out by the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires. Many of these once camping and walking areas are still closed to public use, though one can now drive down the access roads. Along one such we saw one of our favourite cascades on the Murrindindi River running in full flow from the recent rains. But it was unveiled. Where for a couple decades of regular walking in near rainforest conditions along that part of the river yielded varying intensities of rushing waters over tumbled rock surfaces, we now found bare rocks and remnant trunks, everything open to the eye made prying by fire. A new falls, with a waiting period of 20-30 years to get back to 'normal' is probably beyond our allocated time….so we will learn to like the unveiled.