Uploaded February 2019 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Nearly every time the sun warms the ground after a rainy spell, winged subterranian termite queens (and kings) take to the air in mass emerging events to venture forth and start new colonies. The spectacle does not go unnoticed, though... Just about every type of insect-eating predator comes out of the woodwork to take advantage of the free meal. The trick is to catch them! On the ground, ants, spiders and lizards are busy gobbling down as many of the emerging snacks as they can, while the termites are exiting their underground colonies as quickly as possible. In nature, there's usually safety in numbers, but the main benefit of mass emerging events is that there are so many termites bursting out at once that it's nearly impossible to get them all!
Once the bugs have run the gauntlet on the ground, the air isn't much safer. Winged ternmites are weak fliers barely and able to stear, so it's not too difficult for a skilled aerobat to catch them in mid-air. Sparrow-sized birds and dragonflies appear out of nowhere and start snapping them up.
These scenes were filmed in Santa Clarita, California on October 14th, 2018 and capture the event in 240 frame-per-second slow motion using a Sony FS-700RX high-speed camera. In real time, the action is happening 10 times faster than you see here, so as you can imagine, keeping the camera pointed at the right spot at the right time while maintaining focus is quite a challenge. As with most photography, shooting tons of shots is the key to getting a few that turn out okay. It took over a hundred tries to get just these few. The dragonflies were the hardest - they're small and fly at 20-35 miles per hour so they are nearly impossible to track.
The soundtrack is "Stitching the Sky" from the "TimeShift" CD by Technician (yours truly), album and single track available on iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/album/timeshift/id810049912 and CDBaby: store.cdbaby.com/cd/technician1 Full artist discography and CDs available at HTTP://technician.jcmdi.com
Contains JCMDI video catalog #s: V24566,V24567,V24573,V24574,V24575,V24576,V24577,V24578,V24579,V24580,V24581,V24582,V24583,
Note: The audio and video material contained herein is copyright 2019 JCM Digital Imaging and can be licensed for commercial/monetized use on our website at JCMDI.COM. You may also download this footage directly from YouTube and use it free of charge in your own non-profit/non-commercial YouTube videos, school projects, etc. The full free usage policy and YouTube copyright notice/ad info can be found here (please read before using JCMDI material): jcmdi.com/stockfootage/faq.html#freeusage jcmdi.com/stockfootage/faq.html#partner
Nearly every time the sun warms the ground after a rainy spell, winged subterranian termite queens (and kings) take to the air in mass emerging events to venture forth and start new colonies. The spectacle does not go unnoticed, though... Just about every type of insect-eating predator comes out of the woodwork to take advantage of the free meal. The trick is to catch them! On the ground, ants, spiders and lizards are busy gobbling down as many of the emerging snacks as they can, while the termites are exiting their underground colonies as quickly as possible. In nature, there's usually safety in numbers, but the main benefit of mass emerging events is that there are so many termites bursting out at once that it's nearly impossible to get them all!
Once the bugs have run the gauntlet on the ground, the air isn't much safer. Winged ternmites are weak fliers barely and able to stear, so it's not too difficult for a skilled aerobat to catch them in mid-air. Sparrow-sized birds and dragonflies appear out of nowhere and start snapping them up.
These scenes were filmed in Santa Clarita, California on October 14th, 2018 and capture the event in 240 frame-per-second slow motion using a Sony FS-700RX high-speed camera. In real time, the action is happening 10 times faster than you see here, so as you can imagine, keeping the camera pointed at the right spot at the right time while maintaining focus is quite a challenge. As with most photography, shooting tons of shots is the key to getting a few that turn out okay. It took over a hundred tries to get just these few. The dragonflies were the hardest - they're small and fly at 20-35 miles per hour so they are nearly impossible to track.
The soundtrack is "Stitching the Sky" from the "TimeShift" CD by Technician (yours truly), album and single track available on iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/album/timeshift/id810049912 and CDBaby: store.cdbaby.com/cd/technician1 Full artist discography and CDs available at HTTP://technician.jcmdi.com
Contains JCMDI video catalog #s: V24566,V24567,V24573,V24574,V24575,V24576,V24577,V24578,V24579,V24580,V24581,V24582,V24583,
Note: The audio and video material contained herein is copyright 2019 JCM Digital Imaging and can be licensed for commercial/monetized use on our website at JCMDI.COM. You may also download this footage directly from YouTube and use it free of charge in your own non-profit/non-commercial YouTube videos, school projects, etc. The full free usage policy and YouTube copyright notice/ad info can be found here (please read before using JCMDI material): jcmdi.com/stockfootage/faq.html#freeusage jcmdi.com/stockfootage/faq.html#partner
