Red Worm on My Window

This morning when I was about to toss some garbage into the can out on my deck, I encountered a rather bizarre situation! A Red Worm was literally climbing up the outside of my deck door! I’ve seen a lot of weird things in my years of vermicomposting, but this might take the cake!

I know other species, such as Blue Worms (Perionyx excavatus) and African Nightcrawlers (Eudrilus eugeniae) are known for their crazy roaming (especially during really rainy conditions) – some literally being found in the tops of trees and tall buildings – but I’ve never encountered anything like this with Red Worms. They certainly like to be ‘out and about’ a bit during really rainy dark days – but climbing tall buildings (with a single wiggle? haha) is definitely a bit different.

I was half expecting to see a seething mass of worms from my outdoor windrows crawling up my fence and/or out over the sidewalk, but I actually encountered very few other Reds out. Interestingly enough, I DID find a couple more on the same door when I opened it and looked around.

As a way to celebrate this unique occurrence, I decided to write a little ditty…


Red Worms on my window,
I don’t know why they’re there!
Red Worms on my window,
I just can’t help but stare!
Red Worms on my window,
It must be all this rain!
Red Worms on my window,
Perhaps they are insane?
Doo doo, yeah yeah,
Red worms on my windowwwwwwwwwwww!


Thank ya…thank ya very much!
8)

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Comments

    • Lilli-Turning-Green-With-Worms
    • April 8, 2010

    Very nice ditty, Bentley. You did not tell us what tune to sing your Ode-to-the-Red-Worm-Lymric to. May I suggest the tune to “Give me that Fillet-O-Fish, Give me that Fish” that McDonald came up with which is very difficult to get out of your head!

    • Bentley
    • April 9, 2010

    Thanks, Lilli!
    I’m still working on the melody, but it’s coming along!
    😉

    I am especially prone to songs that stick in your head, so I am glad I don’t know what tune you are referring to, and have made a mental note to avoid it at all costs!
    (thanks to my two year old daughter, I’ve had the theme from “Dora the Explorer” running through my head on a daily basis as of late – particularly unsettling when I catch myself smiling as I hum the tune to myself)
    😆

    • Lilli
    • April 10, 2010

    When my kids were small they watched Sesame Street and there was a “Me and my Llama” song I used to hum and smile to… um, I sometimes still do when I pass a Llama in a field or something… I inherited this behavior from my children!

  1. Maybe the wriggler just wanted to be a…pane….

    • Lilli
    • April 14, 2010

    Hahaha… I just set up my first vermiculture compost bin yesterday! I am very excited! My babies came from the bait shop, but look (at least to my untrained eye) very much like the worms in your pictures and videos! I might find out differently in time, and then I will scramble to get the “right” kind. My Mom has a very thick Hungarian accent, and when I told her what I was doing, she heard “VERM” (which is how SHE says “WORM”…) and wondered what was wrong with me NOW!! Everyone else hears “Vermine” apparantly, and I must explain that they are NOT vermine, but great composters!
    Just had to tell you….. 🙂

    • Jillian
    • May 11, 2010

    The first big rain storm we had caused a mass migration out of our outside planters that had vermicompost in the soil mix. They had managed to climb two stories up and were clinging from our windows and roof! I was out there trying to collect what I could in the pouring rain, and my husband was sooo grossed out. He was prancing around trying not to step on any. Good times. 🙂

    • Bentley
    • May 11, 2010

    Wow! Now THAT would have been cool to catch on video, Jillian!
    😆

    • Ken
    • May 12, 2010

    I’ve had some rogue worms the last few days. I have them indoors, in the basement, but the roaming seems to coincide with the rain. I’ve been worried about them because they are crawling on the walls and lid. Should I be buying a pH meter or pH measuring strips? Or do red wigglers usually crawl all over the bin when it’s raining outside all day?

    • Bentley
    • May 13, 2010

    Hi Ken,
    There is definitely a connection between rainy conditions and roaming worms – especially if you have a bin outside. I’m not sure if it’s a low pressure thing, the fact that air moisture is much higher, or that it tends to be darker (perhaps a combination of all three), but I do hear about this a lot.
    I don’t think it has anything to do with the pH of your bin.
    Worms crawling on the walls a lid of a bin in general is actually very normal though – so I wouldn’t be overly concerned.

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