Photo Prompt: Descent—This week, show us your interpretation of descent.

You’ve seen this shot of a hot air balloon that has burst into flame and that is plummeting toward earth once before, but it is so perfect for this prompt that it is appearing for an encore performance. I guess I should mention that it was unmanned!

Searching for a place to land on Candelabra Island, Peru.  I believe these are cormorants but I’m open to correction! One lonely pelican seems to have gotten in with the wrong crowd.

Peru Desert, descending to an oasis.

More Peru desert

Amazon Sunset.  Does the descent of the sun count?

During the rainy season, flying termites descend by the tens of thousands, entering houses  under sliding glass doors, through keyholes and hairline cracks.  They swirl around any light like dervish planets, then chew their wings off and worm their way into any vulnerable wood.  I think they mate somewhere along the way as well, or perhaps they chew their wings off in frustration over being those wallflowers left without a mate.  At any rate, I was dumb enough to leave my pool light on and the next morning awoke to find thousands of insects such as these, pinned upside down by their wings in the water.

Those nimble few who had managed to chew their own wings off then stood on their detached wings or the wings of others as they helped them to chew their wings off.

Once free of their wings, they either swam to safety, found spare wings to use as flotation devices or swam off to aid other termites held captive by their wings in a crucifix position.  It was both ghastly and fascinating and a huge cleanup operation!

Another Candelabra Island, Peru descent.

Thousands of white pelicans winter on Lake Chapala, Mexico, where I live. These are a very few making a landing after their descent.