Ladybirds
I was hoping for some butterflies this week, but it’s been raining most of the time and I’ve only seen a few; perhaps we’ll get Summer sometime. Meanwhile, I’ve found a wide variety of ladybirds, most of which I’d never seen before (info from UK Ladybird Survey)
Ask a child to draw a ladybird, and you’ll probably get something like this: up to 8mm long (as big as a Harlequin), found just about everywhere, eats aphids: the 7-spot. My favourite.
Here are some of the many variations of the 10-spot: half the size of the 7-spot, and seems to have any number of spots except 10. Lives mostly in trees and hedgerows, eats aphids.
This should be called the red-nosed ladybird; it’s a Cream-spot – lives in trees and hedges, and eats (you guessed it) aphids.
This one – the 14-spot – can be found just about anywhere (they say – I had never seen one before). Another aphid-eater
And here’s one I found last year: the tiny 22-spot. Lives in low vegetation and, unlike the others, eats mildew.
22 July 2009 at 09:47
A great set of photos of your ladybirds. I have only ever see the ‘traditional’ 7 spot variety in my garden. I didn’t realise that others were so small so I must have a closer look.
22 July 2009 at 12:59
Thanks, John. Apart from Harlequins, I had only ever seen the 22-spot and 7-spot here before this year, and even now I’ve only seen one each of the Cream-spot and 14-spot; 10-spots seem to be everywhere (but I have never found one with 10 spots!), but they are tiny, and I’ve seen them mostly at night. Good hunting!
18 August 2009 at 15:31
Not only am I awestruck by that pic of ladybird with eggs, but you’ve solved a mystery for me – our mildewy courgette plants had a couple of ladybirds doing what comes naturally, and they were 22 spotters, just like in this pic! Now I know why they were enjoying their surroundings so much
24 August 2009 at 10:01
[...] I should have been on behalf of our courgettes yesterday when I read this post about ladybirds in Hagbourne Wildlife, which told me that the 22 spot eats mildew! I had no idea that there were any none carnivorous [...]
3 April 2010 at 16:56
[...] Last July I wrote about the 5 indigenous ladybird species I’ve found here. Today I found a 6th, the [...]