They’re Here!

And we’ve been expecting them! Army ants - they have been working their way from house to house and we were next on their list. I first noticed them Sunday morning while I was outside. My feet and lower legs started burning. I looked down and there were ants everywhere and they were biting me. The bites really sting and two days later I can still feel the bites.

Army ants are called “cleaner ants” here because if they get into a house, they will clean every surface of dead or live insects, dirt, food crumbs, etc., and then leave. Your house will be spotless! You may as well go out for several hours because they will leave when good and ready. We managed to keep them out of our house this time and they headed towards our gate and the road.

Here is a short video I made of them swarming over our hedge and laneway:

Army Ants!

I was sitting outside this morning, absorbed in something on the computer, when a couple of large ants strolled by on the screen. Lance came outside at that moment and noticed there were swarms of them on the patio.

We unplugged the computer, grabbed it and ran inside. We shut both doors to the outside. The windows are screened so - hopefully - they cannot get in the house that way.

There is nothing you can do about army ants when they decide to make a call. If they get in the house, just go away for a couple of hours. They will do a thorough job of cleaning your house of other insects, crumbs on the floor, etc., and then they leave. Our invasion lasted about an hour or so.

Our ants today were marching in a fairly wide swath up our road and some were diverting left into our laneway to see what they could find. The darn things bite. One bonus of their visit was the appearance of quite a few birds and I think they were eating the ants. We had several blue-black grassquits (Volatinia jacarina) - a new bird for me, assuming I identified it correctly.

Scruffy, our neighbor's dog, chose this time to come and visit us. We could see him shaking his feet so he must have walked right through the path of the ants. We quickly brought him indoors and cleaned his feet off, stomping on ants as they fell off him. I said to Lance, "It was never this exciting in Canada".

Here is a short video I made of the invasion:

 

 

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