Have you found a wood ant nest?

Recording where wood ants (and other species) are found is extremely useful in helping us to understand them better and manage their habitat.

If you have found a nest mound and are confident about the identity, then the best place to send your observation to is irecord. You will need to include some basic information such as: 

• What species
• Where the nest is - ideally a grid reference or the nearest town/postcode 
• When, i.e. date of record
• Who found it

Additional information such as the size of the nest and surrounding habitat can also be useful.

You can also send us details here, particularly if you are not sure of the species identity. We may be able to send a local expert to the site or provide an identification service.

Wood ant walk

It is also important to record wood ant nests not once, but periodically. This can gives us good information about changes in the population. If you regularly walk through an area that has wood ants, why not set up a wood ant walk. To do this, you will need to:

• Walk a fixed route every year (or every other year)
• Measure the length of the walk
• Count how many nests you can see from your path
• Send us your findings