18 Wednesday Mar 2026
When the sun deigns to appear from behind the seemingly interminable clouds, ladybirds venture out to sit on leaves, especially Stinging nettles I’ve noticed, to soak in the sun’s warmth. Yet our spring weather is currently so fickle that many ladybirds are still, as they frequently do during the colder winter months, happily huddling together, like these five 7-spots (Coccinella septempunctata) I spotted last week in a local park.
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!
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.
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!
