Welcoming Guests

I was offered the opportunity today to join a survey of ants known as Shining Guest Ants at Longshaw. They are tiny shiny creatures, and live in the nests of Wood Ants, of which we have millions (Northern Hairy Wood Ants, to be precise) at Longshaw. The Wood Ants  are not that common, but the Shining Guest Ants are classified as globally vulnerable. They are also not good at posing for the camera, so the photo is Wood Ants We found some guests in some of the Wood Ants' nests but not in others. The extra photo shows our head ranger, Rachel, with David, a local freelance journalist who often writes lovely articles about Longshaw and the activities here. Rachel literally had ants in her pants.