James Silvey, RSPB Scotland Nature Recovery Officer, tells us why we need to stand up for ants.
Stand up for ants rather than standing on them
Nature’s calendar is full of events that we often mark in our minds without really thinking of it. The first snowdrops of the year, the returning swallow, bumblebees back in the garden and the first young blue tits at the feeder.
There is one event though that in spectacle and magnitude eclipses them all and it’s an event I keep watch for every year, the mass emergence of black garden ants on their mating flight sometimes known as “flying ant day.”
Stick with me here, the sheer spectacle of this annual event boggles the mind with literally millions of ants in millions of separate colonies across the country emerging en mass to mate, find a nest site and begin the next generation. How these separate colonies across an area manage to synchronise their emergence is not fully understood but if weather conditions are stable across the country it is possible for huge areas of the nation’s black garden ant population to take flight on the same day.
Predicting the date of this emergence is tricky but not impossible if you look out for the following three key signs.
The first is the appearance of spoils of earth outside ant nests in July. The colony is expanding rapidly and the new males and queens that are being produced require much more space in the colony. Workers begin expanding the tunnels and galleries to accommodate this rise in population as well as enlarging the entrance tunnels to the nest in preparation for the mass emergence.
The second sign is a period of calm, warm and humid weather followed by rain to soften the earth. The new queens will need this helping hand in order to construct their starter nests.
Finally the ants need a calm day for the actual emergence as both males and queens are weak fliers.
If all these conditions come together then there is a high likelihood you are about to witness the UK’s biggest wildlife spectacle. This year where I live in Edinburgh it happened on Monday 28th July but some areas in the south of England had reported their flying ant day up to two weeks earlier. This isn’t uncommon and although vast numbers of colonies can emerge on the same day it’s now believed that peak emergence is over a two week period for the UK.
Whatever the date the format is always the same. First, a large proportion of the workers emerge and begin running frantically around the nest site. Next the males emerge and take to the air, these are smaller than the queens and generally more numerous. Finally the new queens emerge, taking to the air in the hope of mating with one of the thousands of males.
The whole event can be over in a matter of hours, a whole year for this one cumulative event.
A true spectacle, however what was the first thing I saw when walking home from work on the Monday? Ant powder, across pavements, along lawns, steps, edgings, anywhere where ants have been happily living for the majority of the year.
Ants are incredibly important for the ecosystem, feeding on insect pests, aerating the soil and providing important food supplies for many garden birds. Surely we can give them one day a year to celebrate being an ant.