Royal Ant
She struggled in the water a while, head sinking below the surface just as I got to it.
*Click on the pictures for a proper look … and click again
Fresh from the wet, still vigorous but drenched. Wings clinging with the weight of water.
One wing entangled, torn where her leg fits through it. Flying times are over little one.
At rest a while on the warm bamboo stick, time to recover her energy for the next effort.
A natural creature just keeps going as long as it has the energy, to perform its function, instinctively.
She’s beginning to feel the need for preening, to get the kinks or debris out of her form. Takes her time.
The head is first for cleaning, eyes and antennae, where the senses are primarily located.
And she’s off, exploring various locations for suitability of habitat to her potential offspring.
Or she’s just checking out her world, small as it is it is mighty big to her eyes. Would be to mine …
Relentless, until she finds what she’s looking for, what is right to her sense of things.
And time for pause … everybody needs pause in this fast, hard, hostile world.
A queen perhaps, of the green-head tribe, of which there are many colonies around the house.
Brought to ground, or water in this case, by the strong winds and rain that’s been passing lately.
Being winged she is on her way to birth another ant colony, chances are, workers of the hard soil.
It’s easy to tell where a colony is days after a little rain, where the grass is growing straight and strong and green.
They prep the ground with their nest site diggings, the way a gardener would to plant food and flowers.
Just one of the millions of creatures working the earth, that we would be poorer for their passing.
© Mark Berkery … Click on those pictures for a closer look … and click again.
*
*
Nature's Place 
Beautiful
Indeed …
Jag älskar dina insektsbilder. Vilken tur att du kom och räddade henne från att drunkna.
Tack
Annemor
Thanks Annemor. Yes, one lucky little ant.
She’s pretty. Good to see her up close. I’m getting a guilty conscience, Mark. Can you please have a look at my aphid photos? Have I misidentified them. I was going to ask you first before drenching them. What are your views on aphids? Regards. Tracy.
Aphids (like grasshoppers) have their place, like anything else. But they can be a nuisance in a developing garden, so I give them a place they choose and keep them from taking over. It’s the way it is, gotta be practical.
Good to know. Thank you, Mark. I was worried my black greeblies might be ants rather than aphids. I didn’t drown all of them. Hopefully there will be a few more predators soon to keep the aphid population in balance.
Your blog has made me a lot more conscious of the insect world.
Awareness of nature is a way of staying in touch with the sense of things. That can only be good.
Thank you for this little ant adventure Mark, photos and words both wonderful…
Thanks Dee …
Wundervoll. Fantastisch !!
Thanks …