09-08-2020 13:17 - edited 09-08-2020 13:41
09-08-2020 13:17 - edited 09-08-2020 13:41
Now having spent my school years in a hot country, I am used to all sorts of ground-hugging and aerial creepy-crawlies, including several thousand large flying ants coming into my bedroom through a gap in the blocks of the roof on my bedroom one year (!).
That said, I have hardly ever seen a flying ant in this part of the world. Yes, little red or black critters marching head-to-tail around the edge of the lawn, or a nest while capping turf in the peat bog in July years ago, but not the winged stage.
Yet this year, there are hundreds of the blighters, just caught this one contending with the gauze lid on the firepit we had out yesterday for a marshmallow toast:
It's a sign, not sure of what yet, though...
I read recently of clouds of them across GB big enough to be visible on satellite imagery, so: what gives?
on 09-08-2020 14:00
on 09-08-2020 14:00
on 09-08-2020 14:19
on 09-08-2020 14:19
@TallTrees wrote:
Yes @pgn
Got to say the ant you photod looks very stylish.
I think she was posing, yes.
Alternately, as I suspect, @TallTrees, if she was a he, he probably loved his mate to death, and was on the way out anyway. Talk about going out with a bang, eh?
Nature is a tough mistress.
on 09-08-2020 14:39
on 09-08-2020 14:39
09-08-2020 17:00 - edited 09-08-2020 17:03
09-08-2020 17:00 - edited 09-08-2020 17:03
I had to look up "chignon"- not quite a beehive coiffure, but understandable, @TallTrees 🤣
This one was at the front of the house - much larger then the first one I photod...
on 09-08-2020 20:35
on 09-08-2020 20:35
09-08-2020 20:43 - edited 09-08-2020 20:44
09-08-2020 20:43 - edited 09-08-2020 20:44
09-08-2020 21:06 - edited 09-08-2020 21:49
09-08-2020 21:06 - edited 09-08-2020 21:49
Ugly, spiky, noisy brutes, crickets - had one start to shrill behind our fridge once, worse than any smoke detector! I suspect yours is a cute grasshopper, @TallTrees.
Anything soldier-like around here is apt to get something chucked at it... The ants that tried to fly out through my bedroom years ago were much bigger than that, and still not soldier ants. They got caught inside the room, 'cos there was a mosquito frame on the window they aimed for. Bleh!
on 09-08-2020 21:57
on 09-08-2020 21:57
Don't hear crickets much in my neck of the woods. However, in Spain we could always rely on the cricket evening chorus
Veritas Numquam Perit
on 09-08-2020 22:35
on 09-08-2020 22:35
Shrilling crickets and buzzing cicadas in Spain - an amazing array of song (or racket!) 🤣
This cicada is similar to those in Spain, they can be remarkably hard to spot in a tree...
The one below is slap-bang in the centre of the photo... See it yet? 👀