Lovely Ladies

Has anyone else noticed lots of ladybirds this week? Everywhere I've been over the last seven days seems to have been crawling with the little red and black creatures!

I noticed one crawling through the grass, which was moved to safety, just before the lawn was mowed on Tuesday. Outside Kettering station yesterday I counted over ten within a metre of me on gravel, walls and the buddleia bushes growing on some rubble by the tracks. Everywhere I looked there were more, all very active crawling across the ground. Today I've seen lots around the garden on trees, bushes, in the lawn and on the paths. 

I haven't looked closely enough to see what type there all were but I'm going to try to remember from now on. That way I can join in the UK Ladybird Survey and log all my sighting here. It's great to get involved in surveys as they are very useful for future conservation projects, you get to help with actual science and it's interesting to take a closer look at what you've seen.

Ladybirds are actually beetles (and apparently not bugs) and live right around the world. Less common names for them are God's cow, ladycock, lady cow and lady fly. Ladybirds are brilliant for the garden as they eat lots of aphids which might want to eat favourite plants. So welcome these lovely creatures to your garden, and later in the year consider making a bug hotel, creating a lovely place for insects like ladybirds to shelter. 

 

Ladybird by Greyson Orlando, via Wiki Commons