I thought I know where the bull-ant nests were on my place. But I've just found a new one. By standing on it.

The established nests are biggish red ants. With both of them, there's a bare patch of dirt that they've cleared and a small mound, so its easy enough to see and avoid. Neither are in a spot I walk through very often.

The new one, though, are bigger, blue bull-ants. They are down on the riverfront. We don't use it much but they are right next to the small bbq pit on a flat grassy deck that sits above the river. I went down there to load up the spring wasp traps and I actually stood on the nest for more than a minute. By then they had infiltrated my clothes. Someone blew a whistle and they all started biting at the same time.

Very painful, and frightening. I was there by myself, I wasn't sure how many were in my clothes as I swatted them out. Most were on my feet and ankles (inside my boots and pants) but they got as high as my thighs inside, on my arms outside and on my stomach inside my shirt. When the frenzy of swatting them was over I took stock. More than 20 bites.

Over the next few days the bites set like a rock for 24-36 hours. The ones on my stomach went bad and got infected, and have left a scar.

I've been back a few times in the last week, to check the wasp trap and re-bait a fox trap. There's also some wood that needed collecting, and today I mowed. I went over the nest very fast, last thing before I finished.