‘THOUSANDS’ of flying ants have been spotted in a back garden near Bournemouth.

Matthew Stone, who lives in Throop, noticed the swarm of bugs in his garden at the end of last week.

He told the Daily Echo: “There’s thousands and thousands of them. The birds are loving it.

“They just buzz around, until a bird comes over and they all fly up.

“We’ve had them here before- it’s always on a hot day when the windows are all open.”

Matthew has shared videos of the flying ants in his garden, but he is not the only one to have spotted the bugs in their ‘thousands’ recently.

The Met Office was alerted to flying ants through a rain radar on Friday, July 7, as people reported sightings on social media saying it was “flying ant day”.

Swarms often look similar to rainfall on the office's radar and are usually picked at this time of the year.

Simon Partridge, a forecaster for the Met Office, said: “Every year around this time we do pick them up on the rain radar. At the moment it’s harder to tell because we’ve got so many showers and the ants look like showers.

“It’s generally the southern parts of the UK where we tend to notice it most.

“They were picked up on the radar on Friday. It was much drier and it was easier to spot them.

“They can be seen several miles across – they look like very heavy showers. On Friday it was about a mile.

“They’re an interesting phenomenon and it’s always this time of year and usually over about a week or so.”