Life (and death) of a wood ant

My husband was off work the other week, so I dragged him around a couple of my favourite reserves. I really should know our local a bit better, but on the three occasions I have done a full circular walk, I have managed to get lost on two of them. And so it was that when we left the decoy pond (where there was one lonely dragonfly), we came to a right-hand turn and I paused. It looked familiar, but then, with a line of tall pine trees to the left and a sweeping view beyond, I would have lingered anyway. Then I looked ahead and remembered how difficult I had found the steep hill winding through the woods, so we pressed on. Of course… I recalled the struggle because it had been on the previous outing – the one where I had got lost and ended up making a much longer loop and found myself at the back of Eridge rocks.

I discovered my error at the next right-hand turn, by which time it was too late to turn back. I had wanted to show him the lovely boardwalk through the woods, with streams tinkling in the shadows and birds singing high up in the tree canopy. Although I had been lucky earlier and photographed an assortment of damselflies, spiders and other bugs, the last stretch was barren, save for a lone, faded silver-washed fritillary. He wasn’t co-operating though and after several minutes of fruitless waiting, I assumed he had actually fallen asleep on the bracken and we moved on.

Finally we reached the last stretch before the car park. The footpath was sandy underfoot and at one point we stopped to watch a line of wood ants as they crossed to the other side. I had no idea why they were making such an expedition, but there must have been thousands, all scurrying along.

Then I looked more closely and got the most fascinating glimpse into their lives. I have always had the utmost respect for ants, but didn’t know much about their behaviour. I smiled as one individual struggled to drag a tiny pine cone back to the nest. It was much bigger than he was, but he wasn’t going to give up and his efforts can be seen in the image featured above, where his feet have made lines in the sand.

The rest of the photographs are rather sad and show injured ants being tended by other ants. The next two images show a pair of ants with another curled into a ball. He was alive and at times they stopped checking him over to drag him further across the path.

The final image was very hard to take. One ant, torn almost in half, was also still alive. I watched as he repeatedly clung to the undergrowth with his two back legs. The other ant was trying to prise him off.