Small insects on the move in the hot summer air. Photo R. Ashdown.

Swallows dart and weave, snapping up a protein feast. Photo R. Ashdown.

Tiny spiderlings ‘baloon’ about. They drift pass on small strands of web, and land all around us on the grass. Photo R. Ashdown

Tiny spider-webs covering flowers in the Toowoomba Botanical Gardens. Photo R. Ashdown

Winged Sugar Ants mill about our large colony under old sleepers in the driveway. Conditions are right for the colony to produce winged ants (known as alates). These are reproductive males and females, which swarm and mate. The males die within a few days but the females (future queens) fly off to find a new nesting site, shed their wings and establish a new colony. Photo R. Ashdown

Unlike most of the colony’s ants, alates are black. Large worker ants stand guard around the mating alates. Photo R. Ashdown.