September Ladybirds

Apart from the excitement of the Scarce 7-spot Ladybird and the Hieroglyphic Ladybird there were several other good finds last month.  The smallest ladybird I have seen, and the equal smallest anywhere at 1.1-1.5mm, was the appropriately named Dot Ladybird, another new species from my mother's garden in Northamptonshire.

 

Not quite as small but also black and hairy was a Forestier's Ladybird.

Closer to home I found another small black hairy one, a Scymnus nigrinus,

and another very small ladybird, a Scymnus suturalis,

Also several Adonis Ladybirds,

a 2-spot Ladybird form typica,

and the less common and more striking 2-spot f. sexpustulata.

Rather more camouflaged were a Larch Ladybird,

an 18-spot Ladybird,

and a Striped Ladybird.

Others were an Eyed Ladybird,

a Pine Ladybird,

and a Cream-spot Ladybird.

And finally more Hieroglyphic Ladybirds.  This one was in Elemore Park in Co Durham,

and a rare black form in Havannah, just down the road.

By next month all the ladybirds will be hibernating and attention will shift to overwintering sites such as gravestones.

Hieroglyphic Ladybird

A second ladybird post in a row but I thought I ought to share this.  It was quite a week, starting off with the discovery of a Scarce 7-spot Ladybird.  I signed off last week's post by saying "Hieroglyphic Ladybird is top of my wish list.  Do let me know if you know where I can find one - and expect to see a photo here if I do."

And the very next morning I found one, or two to be precise.  I called in to Havannah Nature Reserve, a couple of miles from here, just to have a look around because it is a local ladybird hotspot, great for conifer specialists such as Striped, 18-spot and Eyed Ladybirds.  It is predominantly lowland heath with a lot of heather and gorse and Scots pines, a rare habitat around here, but Hieroglyphic Ladybird had never been recorded there so I wasn't at all expecting to find one.  And then there it was in my sweep net.  It was quite active so I took few photos in the net but before I could get a more natural-looking background it flew off.

It is quite a lot smaller than a 7-spot Ladybird and the colour is old gold with the markings you can see, which must have reminded someone of Egyptian hieroglyphs.  After it had gone I carried on my search and ten minutes later, to my amazement, I found another one.

Later that day Chris Barlow, a noted local naturalist and entomologist, found two more and the following day James Common, our local ladybird expert, found another so there is obviously something going on.  Until a few days ago Hieroglyphic Ladybird was the rarest, or least often reported, conspicuous ladybird in the North East Ladybird Spot.  Within the past two or three weeks there have been several records from the Durham Coast as well so things are changing.

There are also lots of Heather Beetles at Havannah, something Chris says he has never seen before, and Hieroglyphic Ladybirds and their larvae eat Heather Beetle larvae.  The habitat is right so the supposition is that this year's fine weather has encouraged the establishment of a population of Heather Beetles and the Hieroglyphic Ladybirds have found them and taken advantage.  With luck both will become established.  On Sunday I went back and Chris found another one which he kindly allowed me to photograph.

I think that's enough on ladybirds for a while so we'll have something completely different for my next post.