Spring brings ant army assaults and amorous avians
In the spring, a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of ant poison.
Spring has sprung. And in the spring, a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of ant poison and how to get rid of pigeons practising the Kama Sutra on the balcony.
Sorry, Lord Alfred Tennyson, but love is on the backburner. My rites of spring began one morning last week, as I stirred from my slumbers to become aware my bedroom floor was moving. “Ah that’s nice, my floor is moving,” I think, stretching luxuriantly and rolling over. Seconds later, I bolt upright, wide awake.
I fumble for my glasses. The floor isn’t moving, of course, but a column of big fat shiny black ants is marching in from my bathroom, hup-two-three-ing around my bedroom floor and goosestepping to somewhere beneath my sofa. The military precision of this invasion is staggering. Somewhere in the column, a barrel-chested ant drill sergeant is no doubt shouting: “I don’t know what you’ve been told. The best stale crumbs are covered in mould.”
Now, for a single fellow living alone, I thought I had been doing a creditable job of keeping my flat spick and span. But I’d forgotten to clean under the sofa, and as I drag it aside, the full horror is revealed. Flakes of parmesan, flecks of cold cuts, miscellaneous mouldering components of various mueslis, pizza crust, chocolate chips, and indeterminate organic material, the sort of thing Richard E Grant, in Withnail and I, drolly describes as “matter”. All served with a generous dusting of, er, dust.
The dust doesn’t deter the ants: the column is now a fully fledged invasion, a coursing black river of bodies, four or five ants across. A Norm-ant-y landing, springtime for Hitler in Germany. Word is clearly out about this formicidae smorgasbord south of my couch. I google ants and land on Rentokil’s site, which suggests they are common black ants, kitchen scavengers partial to paddling about in dog excrement, effective spreaders of salmonella.
They stream in like there’s no tomorrow. Nor will there be. I have nothing against the humble ant as long as he stays in his place, which is the garden. Come into my home, however, and the gloves come off. An invasion of this scale demands a thermonuclear, DEFCON4 scorched earth response, a blast of borax to the thorax, or something similarly noxious to Pink Panther the little blighters for good. Off to the corner store I trot, returning with some baits covered in incomprehensible Japanese scribble, some antibacterial floor cleaner and, in case all else fails, some spray.
I have squished countless ants along the trail so the acrid stench of fallen comrades will say “Abandon hope all ye who enter”. This strategy is compromised by my frantic mopping of the floor, replacing dead ant tang with forest fresh pine scent. I deploy the baits and resist the choking final solution of the aerosol.
The next morning, the ants are gone, but I stir from sleep to a strange feathery shuffling and a soft moaning. The weather warming up, I left my bedroom doors open a few inches. But a pair of pigeons have taken a mile; getting jiggy with it, and not just once, on my sparkling bedroom floor. I leap out of bed, waving my arms like a lunatic and screaming. The birds are gone in a flap of oily wings, but they are soon back. Unwilling to let my balcony become a pigeon love shack, I am seized by an idea. In my living room is a Kmart pressed-metal sulphur-crested cockatoo ornament, larger than life size. I put it on the balcony in a menacing pose. Job done.
The irrefutable proof that spring is here, however, is not ants, pigeons or faded curtains from daylight saving. It’s the season’s first randy panda story. Right on cue, at Adelaide Zoo, Fu Ni and Wang Wang are getting ready to do the wild thang. Pandas are not nature’s porn stars, however; they rarely mate in captivity, can’t sign in to Tinder, and regard “eats, roots, shoots and leaves” as a dietary requirement more than an amorous boast.
As I write, Wang Wang is doing handstands, the better to pee higher into the bamboo, a turn on for she-pandas. Fu Ni is bleating, chirping and indulging in water play, all good signs.
In the spring, a young panda’s fancy lightly turns to the pissing contest known as love.