Out of the corner of my eye I saw some pieces of lovebird food moving apparently self-propelled along the floor, in a line. This was definitely odd, so I took a closer look and saw it was ants. I followed the trail of marching lovebird food, out of the room, out of the hallway, over the back step, across the patio, over the big wall/planter in the patio, across the rest of the patio and then under the barn door and heading out the coral.
This raised SO many questions! But before I could ponder how the ants coordinate such a raid, I went to tell Ian about it and for him to see the trail of marching bird food. I swept up any remaining bird food (Barry gets in the food bowl and then scratches, a bit like a dog digging for a bone – and scatters birdfood far and wide), and we watched them for a while – and in front of our eyes, they stopped coming! Some how, they had managed to communicate to each other that there was no longer any birdfood left. While one or two were milling around, the rest were turning back. It was really quite amazing.
We’ve long been fascinated with ants, ever since we used to watch them carrying dog food away. We were saying how we remembered when once we watched some ants carry a piece of dog food off the well, along the path then navigated carrying it over a drain, only for Petal to eat it when they got it to safety.
We also saw one carrying a feather up a wall – and that was quite interesting, and some ants once dismantling a lizard, which was interesting but not quite so nice.
However, they are also brutal, and the amount of ant pieces left over from an ant fight is quite horrific, it’s like something from a particularly horrible horror film.
In the countryside you can see any trails in the fields, and you can also see trails where they’ve been bringing seeds back from the fields or raiding other colonies.
It’s the sheer amount of precision coordination which amazes me – and makes me thankful they are the size they are and we are the size we are!