Sitting pretty

Toby considers the refreshing delights of ant baths that garden birds use to help keep themselves clean

- TOBY BUCKLAND

HUMID and hot days in summer trigger the entomological equivalent of the mile high club, when winged ants take H to the air for their 'nuptial flight'. Tens of millions take part - so many, in fact, that they can form clouds of up to 50 miles across. And if the ants in this amorous cloud avoid the swifts and gulls that hoover them like high-protein snacks, they return to ground and start new colonies of their own.

But this miracle of Nature is only one way that these insects take to the wing and benefit birds. As every gardener knows, starlings, robins and other birds like to keep their feathers clean. We know they do this by washing their wings in water or by coating them in dusty soil.

However, birds have another, lesser-known bathing routine: taking 'ant baths'. This bathing routine involves sitting on an ant's nest to invite the aggressive insects to attack, then pecking and placing the ants under their wings.