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Antsy critters!

pgn
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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:

IMG_20200809_130532__01.jpg

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? 

 

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TallTrees
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Yes @pgn
we have flying ants every year and the green woodpecker gets in there!
They were flying high here a few days ago.
The garden birds like them too just before launch.

Got to say the ant you photod looks very stylish.


HAPPINESS IS BEE SHAPED

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pgn
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@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?yahoo

 

Nature is a tough mistress. 

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TallTrees
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I believe these are "ladies" @pgn
They are flying off as Queen ants to start new colonies far far away (but across the road to us🤭)
Don't like them flying get in my chignon 🙃


HAPPINESS IS BEE SHAPED

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pgn
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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... 

IMG_20200809_150313_compress99.jpg

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TallTrees
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😱

"Orrible"  @pgn 

beehive...🤣

 

Got to say that ant looks a bit like an African ant.  I have seen African soldier ants ..scary need to watch where walking.

 

 

 

 

 



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TallTrees
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I saw this little critter yesterday on the waterbutt, maybe a grass hopper or  cricket.  Much prettier than the ant @pgn 

20200809_204000.jpg



HAPPINESS IS BEE SHAPED

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pgn
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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.

IMG_6020.jpg

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! 

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Cleoriff
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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

Girl in a jacket
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pgn
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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... 

1280px-Neotibicen_linnei.jpg

The one below is slap-bang in the centre of the photo... 1280px-Cicada_on_a_raintree_in_Bangalore.jpgSee it yet? 👀

 

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