June Beetles Providing Exceptional Protein Bounty

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Kids, birds and I just had a blast going after the May Beetles swarming over the lawn. When swarm started I walked into yard and started looking at a flying beetle. The hen then jumped down from roost with chicks in tow and ran over to me. She caught a few for chicks as we moved as a group to an area of concentrated beetles where the frenzy got under way. Kids came in then as well. About half of brood stayed with mother that was handily the best catcher. The other half struck out on their own to catch beetles on the fly. Kids caught beetles then transferred them to Blanco (hen's new name) who then gave them to chicks. Crops were topped off quickly. A great deal of sustained activity was associated with the effort. As before, group decided all at once the frenzy is over and the quickly went over to pen I set out for them. Solitary chicks were slower to give up effort.

Serious science potential for this in coming years.

 

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Interspecies harem formed that includes my two kids.

 

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Kids and chickens foraging area where beetles will emerge. Greens and smaller insect fair currently being consumed.

 

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As e waited for beetles to fly, the hen with brood kept sweeping back and forth over an area approximating an acre in size. They appeared to exhaust beetles in a location with a minute so they kept moving to areas with beetles flying. After five minutes of so the number of beetles on the wing in a given location were back up to levels chickens would come back to forage over again. Birds worked entire area half dozen times before call to roost. All had packed crops.

Some really cool behavioral / communication notes will be summarized.

Two B-2 bombers where flying back and forth above us so provided an additional distraction.

 

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Hour of beetle swarm approaching. Brood again going back and forth picking up what they can find which so far is not beetles. They are spreading out more now but when one gets a beetle it does tell others. That "telling" is part of how they coordinate movements, otherwise they would spread out much more than they do. I am not sure who decides direction they will take.

A rabbit is sitting in the middle of flock. Both dogs stalking it. I have many rabbits.

 

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Dogs are getting in to chasing the beetles now. Getting to be a fiasco. May have gotten a good video clip of a capture. Birds still chasing beetles but many wanting to go to roost. That changes when they hit a patch of beetles.

 

[centrarchid]

Birds also having no trouble avoiding the fireflies that are more abundant and much easier to catch.

 

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Now we will try to attract the beetles with a UV / black light source reflected of the garage door. This is where we might be able harvest larger amount of the beetles that can be carried into following day.