use a piece of vencian blind or flat piece of bamboo as from a rake or blind. sand the end flat scoop under the worm and flick into a dust pan or simular. this works very well.
rich

A tooth pick or skewer will do too.

With the mention of "A tooth pick or skewer will do too." I think of cheese cubes. Ahhhhh! :-) And I doubt that is what otis11 meant.

On the other hand once they have made their way to the sidewalk they sort of look like goners. Thus the difficulty picking up their now less than firm bodies. Like something in them has washed away. Or group insanity like the beaching of whales. Maybe hands coated with a bit of dry peatmoss would adhere well without hurting them?

To clarify otis11's message. When working with worms many (some?) of us use a barbeque skewer or similar tool to pick them up because just a light touch to the top of the worm and the worms (especially baby worms) seem to magically cling to it for easy, harm free moving. Not quite sure why they do, but they do. Or if the worm is squigles the right way sometimes there is a space underneath and they can be scooped up from underneath.

Your obviously a kind person to want to help the nightcrawlers to not die in the sun. I do try to not step on them. This reminds me of the starfish story where someone tosses a starfish back into the ocean. There are a zillion on the shore. A second person says you can not make a difference in these starfishes lives. So the person replys while tossing another starfish back into the ocesn, Made a difference in that ones.

Are you putting the nighcrawlers into a bin or placing them back on the lawn?

Thanks equinoxequinx!

I have two worm bins. One with red worms for vermicomposting. Another for nightcrawlers for fishing and for "seeding" my vegetable gardens.

Jim

I wonder which is worse for the worms. To die on the side walk or dangling from a hook into a fish' belly. Sorry Jim, just wondering, lol.

Actually otis11, I don't fish. Should I raise enough earthworms and also find someone who wanted some of them to go fishing, then the fate you mentioned might befall them. But most likely they will end up in my vegetable gardens.

I had a thought tonight about "rescueing" them without adopting them. If I put a bright directional light in the middle of my driveway at night, perhaps I could drive them back into the grass.

Jim

Nearly all the worms I rescued were tiny, perhaps .5 to 1.5 inches long. Seems odd there should be so many relatively newborn nightcrawlers just a few days before December starts in north Alabama. Seems that with such cold weather lately that they'd all be snug in their coccoons awaiting Spring.

Any ideas?

Worm Rescuer Jim

Earthquake?

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/

Thanks equinoxequinox for the suggestion of earthquakes. I saw none recently anywhere near Huntsville, Alabama. And it seems like after an earthquake, the nightcrawlers would hatch slowly, and then take a while to grow to the size that I found them. But my experience with nightcrawlers being fruitful and multiplying in my worm bins has been limited to observing their mating habbits. No results noticed afterwards. No coccoons. No little ones seen yet.

On the other hand, I've not seen the red worms getting together, but I've found 4 coccoons. And I've found a lot of very tiny red worms. So they are being fruitful and multiplying in a bin and bedding and office environment and food exactly the same as my nightcrawlers are living in.

Jim