Ant architecture

I was out collecting cycle counter data (from some of those mysterious grey boxes that are found by the side of the road, or in this case, the cycle path) and one of the boxes had a few ants in it. When I lifted the metal plate that the equipment sits on I found out why - in the space underneath the ants had built a nest. Its one of those things that is normally almost impossible to get a good look at, and I discovered at about the age of six that by digging a nest up you tend to destroy it in the process of trying to see it. I was satisfied to see it did indeed look suitably strange and alien, and surprised to find that the mud it was made of was very damp (as I learned whilst wiping it off the side of the camera).