02 Jun 2025 FILM DIARY

This morning I photographed some funnel ant mounds, intrigued by their existence in gaps in the footpath in Driscoll Lane. Such mounds are a typical and frequent sight on lawns and road verges on the mountain after sufficient rain. But these  were in the tiniest of gaps, where a concrete footpath joined a concrete curb beneath the picket fence. The ants had pushed the earth through the gaps, which begs the question of why they did so in a location covered by a hard surface, and the size of any prey which might fall down the funnel. Biodiversity will not be denied, I have seen plants pushing through just such a gap between hard surfaces, morels pushing through a gravel drive and in Holland, hollyhocks surging to their full height in the gap between the edge of the pavement and the front of a house.