Quick survey: Have you seen any ladybirds this year?? I haven't.

[Chaotica]

Yet there are greenfly everywhere and we should have a plague of them by now, like there was in 1976... (I am that old ).

I have seen three.

Two of those were on the same plant 'having a cuddle' as DD put it

Nowhere near as many as usual.

lots of greenfly
did find one ladybird up my trouserleg yesterday, it was freakishly huge

I've seen one I remember thinking "ah, the first ladybird of summer" but now you mention it, I don't think I've seen any more.

That's better than me then. Let's hope that their cuddle results in lots of ladybirds

Gosh, you're right, I've not seen any yet.

i saw one, flipped it off my hand before i realised what it was

Funnily enough I was looking "atthis" yesterday.
It's worrying, I havent seen any at all this year

I've seen one weird black one with yellow spots.

The abundance of greenfly is probably because there aren't many ladybirds, surely?

Think I've seen 3, and one was yellow rather than red.

Haven't seen any greenfly yet.

MrsMcCluskey - I checked out the link. They have ladybirds posting on Twitter (Well, it turns out they don't when you read it again properly - might be onto something here then, unfortunately.)

Come to think of it, I think I did see one in about february (just after the snow )

I have not seen any...I have four dcs if there were any ladybirds around I would have been notified

Cherrychoc - there might well be a connection with greenfly numbers. I have seen some odd looking beetles taking up the slack and an awful lot of little spiders trying to catch them.

(I wanted to post on here as I only have my own area and a research team of three toddlers and a childminder to help me.)

No ladybirds

And terrible greenfly.

And those red lily beetles that cause so much damage mating having a cuddle left right and centre.

no haven't seen any and usually we are over run with them.
DS2 got mobbed by a gang of greenfly in the park on Monday they were all over his (yllow) tshirt iin his hair and face and mouth.. we left, it was toooooo horrid.

no ladybirds here.

That's soooo odd. We are absolutely swamped with them here in North London. We have a little wall on the way to school where we often count 20+ and our garden is full of them.
However the majority are still in the juvenile stage or in the pupa still. Sorry to be patronizing but is this something you are familiar with? A juvenile ladybird is very different from an adult:
www.ladybird-survey.org/downloads/Ladybird%20larvae_v.1.4.pdf
Adults have only just started emerging recently so perhaps they are later than usual.

Just the one.

hi i saw a lady bird in wandswoth common it flew onto our juice carton but it is the first i have seen
i hope they are not beginning extinct

Have seen a fair few ladybirds, all sizes and sorts.
But it is DEFINITELY The Summer of the Greenfly. They have been scarey in their sheer numbers. Better since it's gone drier and windier last few days.

they've been disappearing over here for a few years already

one so far this year but hordes of aphids

Thanks for the link, Tambajam (my understanding of insects is a bit homespun ). Unfortunately, I don't think I've seen any young ladybirds either, although I'll look out for them.

DS's nursery teacher was showing us all a load of baby ladybirds today on the school gate. We all realised we'd seen the larvae before but didn't know what they were.

We know about young ladybirds, and last summer we saw lots of them as well as lots of adults.

But this year - next to none.

What's going on? Is it an official shortage?

ladybird survey

We've got more ladybirds than normal. We've even had 3 in the car in the last week! flying in when the doors are open (we don't have the windows open cos we have air con).

Oh dear now I'm singing 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12, ladyugs came to the ladybug picnic from Sesame Street