THE coronavirus pandemic may have upset the human desire to fly but has had no effect on the annual black garden ant flying days.

Their underground nests will have a single queen and anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 worker ants.

Flying ant days occur when young queens and accompanying males decide to branch out, mate and start their own colonies. Queens can live for 15 years.

Bob Hart, of Ropley, who took the photograph, told the Chronicle: “Whilst walking into the sun across the Ropley cricket pitch last evening, the atmosphere was so dense with flying ants that face masks were almost de rigueur for an entirely non-covid reason.”