I was amazed to hear, early this morning on Radio 4's Today Programme, today being declared Flying Ant Day. How something can go from being a private observation/observance to the New Bloomsday in a year or so is a matter for no small wonder.
Anyway, pace Jim Naughtie and the biologist with the terrible phone line (and presumably the misleading press release), today is not Flying Ant Day, in these parts, anyway, though it certainly was last year. Really, they should know better: Flying Ant Day is very much what they call a moveable feast. Shame: I was looking forward to seeing a few squadrons of the critters getting in amongst the gowned graduands and their over-dressed families.
Maybe tomorrow. Though I'm beginning to wonder whether, like Olympic security, the manufacture and delivery of new wings have been outsourced this year...
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2 comments:
As I listened to this this morning and thought of you. The girls got very excited and wanted to know all about the ant life cycle. I was still half asleep and stumbled through it.
I still remember my first flying ant day in 1978 not longer after we moved to Wokingham near Reading. I don't remember seeing it in Scotland but I was fascinated by the whole affair and it seemed very exotic!
Gavin
Gavin,
This sudden global interest in Flying Ant Day is very odd -- as I suggested last year, I suspect "spot betting" may be at work... Any "flying ant" post goes straight to the top of the blog pageview list.
It is a deeply fascinating phenomenon, of course -- as if ants have already mastered some form of bio-internet, and are all facebooking each other.
Mike
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