The effects of tent worms
 

I live in Vermont, "The Green Mountain State", but it seems like soon there won't be any green left. We've been having a real problem with these tent worms, pictured below (Not my picture)

http://bexar-tx.tamu.edu/HomeHort/F1...TentCaterp.jpg

This is a shot taken near my home, I never realized how extensive the damage was until I saw this view, and I decided I had to take a picture.
http://www.boomspeed.com/spskelly/IMG_0267.JPG

They go in cycles, don't they?

I seem to recall years where we would have tons of them and then years without...

I just talked to my stepdad about it today and he said something about three year cycles. He says when you get near the killed off area you can just see light streaming into the forest ahead of you, and I guess they really smell. Also, it sounds like it's raining out because of the thousands and thousands of these things up in the trees excreting onto the forest floor. Aparantly they don't eat the leaves, they just cut the leaves off. I don't know how accurate that is, it's just how he described it. Hopefully they'll go away next year so our mountains aren't as scarred.

HI, this is my first post, but as an arborist I can't help but comment. It sounds to me like what your talking about (and what you posted a picture of) is actually called an Eastern Tent Caterpillar. They don't eat the leaves of trees but defoliate them by eating the petiole (base of leaf stock). Most trees will recover and refoliate the next growing season.

Here is a link to some more info, or just google tent caterpillar

http://www.uky.edu/Ag/Entomology/ent...rees/ef423.htm

tree doctor! Excellent first post.

those are truly disgusting critters... my parents old house in connecticut used to get them ... you'd walk outside and it'd be like walking thru cobwebs from all the caterpillers and webs they'd create to make those nests...

/me shudders