This swarm of termites is even rarer this year. Reports from around the country say that swarming is way down from years past. The experts conjecture that atmospheric conditions have not been just right and the workers in the colony are cannibalizing the flights.

This swarm was photographed by me at the base of my driveway here in Tigard. The first thing I did after taking some pictures was to make sure that there were no swarms close to my house. A swarm next to the house would have indicated that there was a good chance that a colony had started to munch on the house.

These are reproductive termites, called aletes. They are easy to identify by their long double set of wings. Both sets of wings being of equal length. Ants and termites reproduce this way. Once a year the colony produces the new males and queens and nurtures them until one magic moment in a neighborhood when all of the aletes from all of the colonies spring into the air and ride thermal currents up hundreds of feet. There mating takes place and the males fall to the ground. The new queens extend their wings and using infrared sensors, glide to a likely place to start a new colony