Wood Ants

While I had expected to be busy over the next few days, events today just show that there are some days when things just go right.

One of the things I wanted to do was film the wood ants in the Forest. We are fortunate to have a rare species here the Hairy Northern Wood Ant. But while I knew were there were nests last year, two of those were deliberately destroyed. It is all to easy to blame this on kids or young people, the reality is that no one knows who did it or why. Therefore I was expecting it to take me a day or two to locate another colony.

However, because of my previous experience of searching out nests for a cancelled conservation project, I had a clear idea of the conditions that I needed to look for. It took me less than half an hour to find a large active nest. Thus I was able to get on with filming the ants. I got the most of the shots I wanted. The only one that I haven't got yet is a clear shot of the whole nest. The one that I found was to well hidden so that to get a shot of the whole mound of the nest would have required me cutting down four fifty foot trees. So I was able to really experiment and get some really magnified shots. The ants kept on moving out of focus but as a test it was more than successful.

I also got another treat as while heading towards home I saw a Merlin. I did stop and set up the camera to see if I could film it, but it had only been a brief view and waiting for a hour was not going to get the bird to return. I would have stayed longer but I needed to get back home as my flask was sitting on the kitchen counter as I had forgotten to pick it up. In my defence the phone had rung just as I was getting ready to leave, and that had caused me to leave it. So I was gasping for a drink.

I also wanted to get a bath as I needed to wash away the sweat of the day as I needed to do my checks on the Badgers. With mammals in particular it is important to avoid having a strong human scent as even staying down wind, the way that the air can eddy in and around woods can lead to detection and betrayal. However, I did not get out to see the Badgers as I was just to tired to do it. I am writing this having just woken up on the sofa having missed the times when the Badgers would have emerged. Well I will have to do it another day.