A Sky Full of Bugs

Millions, every cubic mile, passing by over head carried by the wind. Millions, seriously. I heard this on the radio last week (audio link here and transcript here). It really made me pause and think. "...a single male termite soaring 19,000 feet up" Termites... at -15C, where there's very little oxygen. Spiders, mites, eggs, all sorts of little critters, swirling over-head.

I've often floated in my pool, and have seen swifts and swallows flying diligent sorties, thousands of feet above my neighborhood, and I thought "are they just showing off? doing some kind of mating display?" Nope, they're eating, clouds of tiny insects we can't see from the ground. A virtual wind provided buffet. I had no idea.

Silly humans. We think we own this planet.