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.
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.
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.
