The other day it was warm, sunny and a bit muggy. The air in the garden was filled with flying ants and tall plants like this hollyhock were crawling with the creatures climbing up high to launch themselves.
Some people are terrified or disgusted by these little aeronauts but this is really a miracle of nature.
These are the females of the common garden black ant (Lasius niger) that nests under paving or big stones. What they are after is to meet up with the smaller male ants from another nest on their nuptial flight. They have been nurtured by the small, black workers and somehow all the nests in an area seem to know that today is the day.
Here we have the females jostling for position at the top of the plant.
And below you can see one just about to take off. Look at that determination.
So this is their one afternoon of love. After mating the males die pretty soon while the females bite off their wings and burrow underground to start a new colony, where they will be the egg-laying queen for up to 15 years, amazingly..
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