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What you are witnessing is truly one of nature's great sights in Nova Scotia , as far as I am concerned. In the early 1960's in August, about the 15th to 20th, I'd say now, small red flying ants emerged in Bear River late one afternoon and evening, until the sky was so filled with their swarms that we were literally choking on them. We couldn't stay inside, wanting to photograph as much of this occasion as possible, and watching in fascination as they came spiralling out of the ground.They all spiralled in the same direction, too, and I think it was counter clockwise? Would that be correct in this hemisphere? Just like tiny minature, living tornados. We have an old farm house on the Annapolis side of the river, and we often look across to the setting sun on the Digby side. The scene that evening against the sun was just like out of a movie, it was so surreal. It looked like the town was on fire with the rising smoke, which in fact were the rising swarms. Had every ant been numbered I am sure there were a billion there that night without exaggeration. The migrating nighthawks and swallows and swifts filled the skies that evening, too, as well as other birds aroused by the sudden super abundant food supply. After awhile the ants come back to earth and bite off their wings and start new colonies, but I am not sure if that makes them all queens. We have witnessed this phenomena other times, but it was never so spectacular as it was that evenig. Another late afternoon/evening we were coming out of the great forest, now gone, from a week of trout fishing, and 9th Lake became covered from shore to shore in ant bodies. At first the trout were jumping and biting very well, but they soon became full, and nothing would tempt them, as they were too satisfied. The only water visible on the lake was the trail which our canoe left, as it parted the biomass floating on top of it. The bow and sides of the canoe were covered in bodies, making it disgusting to handle and portage! Other times we witnessed great hatching of mayflies of various sorts, sometimes small and green or larger and black. Many forms of insect life are notorius for their very high and very low cyclic populations, so in another few year you may not see any such swarming events, or there will be so few you will not even notice them. JET in Wolfville
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