02 Thursday Oct 2025
Tags
7-spot ladybird, autumn colour, Black Bryony berries, blackberries, Common Darter, Field rose hips, Guelder rose berries, Hawthorn berries, red berries, red colour in nature, Robin's pincushion
When I’m out walking at the moment, it seems that everywhere I look, I see red …
I see red
I see red
I see red
I see re-e-ed
04 Tuesday Mar 2025
Tags
7-spot ladybird, British ladybirds, Coccinella septempunctata, Halyzia secedimguttata, Orange ladybird
My ‘ladybird species seen in 2025’ total has risen to the highly unimpressive total of …
three, now that I’ve seen a few 7-spot ladybirds (Coccinella septempunctata) and a single Orange ladybird (Halyzia sedecimguttata). Other people seem to be finding several species of ladybirds clustering on headstones in graveyards so I’m planning a trip very soon to my favourite old cemetery. Fingers crossed!
17 Wednesday Jan 2024
Have you ever wondered where ladybirds go in winter? Some of them hide away in crevices in tree bark, or under unused flower pots in garden sheds; some even invade our houses, where they can often be found huddled together along the edges of windows.
Others can be spotted outside, hiding in plain sight, as you see here, tucked in holes in fences or clinging on beneath seed heads. They’re such wonderful, though tiny pops of colour in an otherwise fairly drab landscape.
13 Wednesday Apr 2022
Isn’t it lovely to see ladybirds again? There were at least eight 7-spot ladybirds on these freshly sprouted Nettle plants, possibly more mini-beasties hiding under the leaves, but I wasn’t going to get stung looking for them.
15 Thursday Jul 2021
Tags
7-spot ladybird, 7-spot ladybird pupa, British ladybirds, Harlequin eating 7-spot, harlequin ladybird, Harlequin ladybird larva
In the Silence of the Lambs, it was Hannibal Lecter; in the world of ladybirds, it’s Hannibal Harlequin. Yes, folks, though I’m sure you all thought ladybirds were cute, it’s actually a ladybird eats ladybird world out there! In this case, a Harlequin ladybird larva is eating the pupa of a 7-spot ladybird.
05 Monday Jul 2021
Tags
7-spot ladybird, 7-spot ladybird lifecycle, British ladybirds, Coccinella septempunctata, ladybird life cycle
A few weeks ago I wrote about going insecting and showed a few of my recent finds, including what I suspected was a photo of ladybird eggs. Sure enough, when I revisited that particular spot last week, I found ladybirds in various stages of development. When I add in a photo, taken in a previous year, of ladybirds about to mate on a gorse bush, we have the full lifecycle: mating, eggs, larva, larva beginning to pupate, pupa and recently emerged adult (they often emerge quite pale), all of the 7-spot ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata).
18 Thursday Mar 2021
Tags
7-spot ladybird, British ladybirds, Coccinella septempunctata, Seven-spot ladybird, Spring colour
A tiny spot of red caught my eye, and then, close by, another – my first ladybirds of the year, both Seven-spot ladybirds (Coccinella septempunctata).
If you’re lucky, you may have had these little beauties hibernating in your garden shed but, in this case, these two are countryside dwellers so have probably spent the winter inside a plant stem, or perhaps tucked securely within the dense branches of ivy, or maybe in a deep crack in tree bark. A few sunny days and warmer overnight temperatures will have triggered their emergence from hibernation, and produced another spring treat for me to enjoy!
03 Friday Jul 2020
This is a bit of a sad story. During yesterday’s walk, I spotted this Seven-spot ladybird sitting on a leaf alongside the path.
It was acting a bit strangely: opening its elytra (wing cases), raising its abdomen, shutting its elytra, over and over again. It took me a minute to realise that it only seemed to have one full-size wing; the other appeared stunted or perhaps it had been damaged and was no longer able to be extended.
I presume the ladybird was trying to remedy the problem through its movements but they didn’t seem to have any effect, and I fear this ladybird may be forever grounded.
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).
earthstar 
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