Ladybirds week 4

At the beginning of week 4 I walked across to Weetslade to look for ladybirds.  I found three 22-spot Ladybirds (Psyllobora vigintiduopunctata) in grass tussocks.

The main reason to go was to look for Water Ladybirds (Anisosticta novemdecimpunctata) and I found eight in the reed mace.  I kept looking after finding the first one because I was also hoping to find a Red Marsh Ladybird but I was out of luck.  Still, both these are a first for the site as far as I can tell.

The next day I walked down the second fairway to the pond at the bottom, 250m from here. After searching for a few minutes I found a Red Marsh Ladybird (Coccidula rufa).

And a few metres away, a Water Ladybird.  It is strange to think these little beasts were living only an 8 iron away from here and I never knew.

The Saturday field trip was to the Spetchells at Prudhoe.  On the way I called in at the churchyard at Burnopfield, from where I had seen a Heather Ladybird (Chilocorus bipustulatus) reported to iRecord a few weeks ago.  And there it still was, a few gravestones in from the gate. It is tiny and, as far as I could see there was no heather nearby.  Looking at the map I think the nearest significant heather is 10 miles away.  And this is the ladybird we spent three hours looking for in heather at Rothbury the week before!

The reflections from the ring flash are a bit distracting on this very shiny black ladybird but I am working on getting a better flash diffuser. 

The target for the walk at Prudhoe was the 24-spot Ladybird (Subcoccinella vigintiquattuorpunctata) and it wasn't long before we found one.  That was two new species for me within an hour.  The 24-spot is vegetarian and semi-matte with furry wing cases.

We also found a 10-spot Ladybird (Adalia decempunctata) with almost no spots - one of the many colour variations.

Other sightings were of 7-spot, Orange, Pine and Water Ladybirds so it was a good day.  This was the last of our regular field trips, although we hope there will be one more informal one to come.  In the past month I have seen 17 species of ladybird, including 11 that were new to me. Here are 16 of them - the missing one is Harlequin Ladybird.  I expect you'll recognise all the others.