04 Saturday Apr 2020
Tags
It only takes a few sunny days and warming temperatures to bring out the mini-beasties. These are some of the bees and bumbles, flies and hoverflies I’ve spotted over the past week or so. Oh, and I mustn’t forget, my first 7-spot ladybird of the season.
26 Tuesday Mar 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, insects, ladybird, nature, spring
Tags
#365DaysWild, 7-spot ladybirds, bee-flies, Comma butterfly, Common Green Shieldbug, Dark-edged bee-fly, Peacock butterfly, Penarth Rail Trail, Sawfly, south Wales coastal path, Speckled wood
I walked further than I intended today but I just couldn’t resist the sunshine, the calls of the birds, the bees and hoverflies buzzing all around, the white blossom and the vibrant green leaf growth … it was magical! Yesterday, I saw my first Peacock butterflies of the year and today I saw four more, plus my first two Speckled woods and my first Comma, my first Common green shieldbug and my first Dark-edged bee-flies, lots of them, and my first 7-spot ladybirds. It gladdens my heart to see so much new life emerging.
24 Monday Sep 2018
While my fellow birders were standing in a particularly windy spot to scope the distant shoreline at Llandegfedd Reservoir last Wednesday, I moved along the trail a little to seek shelter behind some trees. And, as I always do, I had a little look at the leaves to see what small creatures were about.
First up were these two bonking beetles who decided to come over and say hello despite being rather busy at increasing their species. After a couple of photos, I returned them to a new leaf and wished them well.
Then it was a warm welcome to the world to this newly emerged Orange ladybird – that little pile of dark matter is what remains of its pupa.
And I’m not sure what this mini-beastie is but I love its pale green body, the hint of turquoise in its wings and those incredible feathery feelers out front.
10 Friday Aug 2018
Tags
7-spot ladybirds, aphids, Cosmeston, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, harlequin ladybird, ladybirds, Wild parsnip
I googled ‘What do ladybirds eat?’ today because I was trying to work out why there are so many ladybirds – about a 50 / 50 split between 7-spots and Harlequins – on the Wild parsnip plants at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park. It turns out ladybirds are particularly keen on aphids and, as you can see in some of my photos, there are rather a lot of aphids on these plants. Good news for the ladybirds!
07 Thursday Sep 2017
Tags
Halyzia 16-punctata, Halyzia secedimguttata, ladybird, ladybird larva, ladybird lifecycle, ladybird pupa, ladybug, Orange ladybird
I believe I may have an addiction to ladybirds! When I decided to write this post, I thought I’d just check that I hadn’t covered this topic already: of course, I knew I had written about ladybirds before but I didn’t realise quite how many times. There’s a post here and here and again here and another one here. Well, in spite of all those, here’s another one because, when I found all the Orange ladybirds pictured here within five minutes of each other yesterday, I was struck yet again by just how incredible is their transformation from egg to larva …
to pupa …
to ladybird. It really is quite miraculous!
03 Sunday Sep 2017
Ten days ago I spent the day bioblitzing with my friend Hilary at Amelia Trust Farm (with their permission, of course). Hilary volunteers there so was keen to see what we might discover around the grounds.
The habitats were a mix of woodland, arable fields, and flower and vegetable gardens, though we kept to the various footpaths, only looked at the fields from the fence lines, and didn’t venture far into the vegie patch. As previously, Hilary surveyed the plants and I did everything else. For a late summer’s day, in a site full of noisy families, I thought my total of 59 species was respectable enough. Here are some of the things I spotted …
02 Tuesday May 2017
Tags
14-spot ladybird, 18-spot ladybird, 22-spot ladybird, 7-spot ladybird, Bishy-barnabee, harlequin ladybird, ladybird, Orange ladybird, Robert Macfarlane, vernacular names for ladybird
If you’re on Twitter and follow one of my favourite authors, Robert Macfarlane, you’ll know that he tweets a ‘word of the day’. Yesterday’s was ‘Bishy-barnabee’, a vernacular name for the ladybird used by folk who live in the English county of Norfolk. I adore these common names – they are often old, come from a time when folk paid more attention to the natural world, observing the habits and customs of the creatures around them, or they named creatures after concepts and ideas that were important to them. Macfarlane listed other ladybird names too: cushcow, goldie-bird, red-sodger, and kingcollawa. In Fauna Britannica, Stefan Buczacki lists even more: as well as bishie barni-bee, he has bishop barnabee, bishop is burning, bishop that burneth (all from Norfolk); clock-o’clay and cow lady (from Yorkshire); God Almighty’s cow, God’s little cow and King Galowa (from Scotland); and ladycow, lady fly, lady lanners, Mary gold and sodger (from Northumberland). I’m sure there are many many more.
Here is a selection of the Bishy-barnabees I have photographed (using the mostly numerical descriptions we more commonly use these days: two 7-spots, a 14-spot, an 18-spot, a 22-spot, 3 Harlequins and an Orange).
25 Saturday Mar 2017
Posted in insects, ladybird, nature, spring, wildflowers
Tags
bees, butterflies, flies, hoverflies, insects, insects in springtime, ladybird, shieldbugs, Spring has sprung
You know Spring has well and truly arrived when the insects start appearing in reasonable quantities so, judging by the numbers of insects I’ve seen on my walks over the past two days, I would say Spring has most definitely sprung, wouldn’t you?
12 Saturday Dec 2015
Posted in insects, ladybird, nature, nature photography, winter
≈ Comments Off on There’s a cannibal in my kitchen
For the third time in as many weeks a Harlequin ladybird (Harmonia axyridis) has appeared as if from nowhere in my kitchen. They like to find somewhere cosy to hibernate the winter away so I’m sure a warm spot near my gas boiler would suit them very well and normally I wouldn’t mind but this is the most invasive ladybird on earth.
The voracious little Harlequin originated in Asia but was introduced firstly to North America and later to Europe to control aphids. Though it only arrived in Britain in 2004 – perhaps blown across the Channel, or it may have hitched a ride on a vehicle – it has already spread throughout half these isles. The problem is that the Harlequin doesn’t just eat aphids; not only does it compete with native ladybirds for food but it also devours their eggs and larvae, as well as the eggs and caterpillars of butterflies and moths. It may look cute but it has the devastating potential to wipe out all 26 resident species of ladybird.
This is one time when I really wish this ladybird would fly away home!
