Some time ago Nigel spotted this red car in Dunedin and it’s a beauty! The guy on the left is legging it.. ladybird phobia, I wonder? Nigel’s take: reluctantly using his wife’s car and it’s like … SHAME !!! Any other ideas? (apart from ‘he wants to get out of the photo’)
To enlarge a little bit, click on the photo.
Back in autumn I asked Nigel to remove the glass cover of the outside light, in order to clean it. Look what he found!
Text by Liz and photos by Nigel; Exploring Colour (2019)
Exploring Colour 
I’ve read this post after responding to your later one, Liz…interesting to hear that ladybirds occur in high numbers elsewhere! (And I could never vacuum them up – they get carefully escorted back to the garden, maybe even to some greenfly…)
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Hahaha.. LOL 🙂
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We’ve been over run by ladybirds coming inside the last two autumns. I posted about Harlequin Ladybirds last year – https://nzearthnerd.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/what-do-you-call-a-group-of-ladybirds/ – they’re a lovely Asian import that’s threatening our local species and some food crops. And they swarmed in their thousands this year, looking for somewhere to over winter.
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Oh? I was aware they’re here but didn’t realise they build up such large numbers in NZ. That’s definitely not good.
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Glorious!!!
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Yes, love these ladybirds!
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Funny find! 😄👍
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“We can help with that!” …. very funny off the back bumper… more ladybugs or less? Fun post, Liz!
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Oh yeah.. that street sign is in ladybird red!
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In New York I grew up calling them ladybugs (and technically they’re beetles rather than bugs), but people in some other places call them ladybirds, as you do. In Texas the term immediately brings to mind Lady Bird Johnson, whom Lyndon Johnson used to call Bird.
The page at https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/nz-ladybird-watch sounds the alarm for the recent arrival in New Zealand of the harlequin ladybird, which has been highly invasive elsewhere.
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Yes, I’d read a little about that. Ladybugs was described as an American thing and Ladybirds as European. In NZ we use ‘ladybirds’ although I imagine Americans residing here continue with Ladybugs!
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Great link in this post. Did it take Nigel long to put the spots on the car? 🙂
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Hahaha.. LOL! 🙂
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That is some serious ladybird fun. 🐞
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This is ladybird season here in New England. As the temperature drops many come indoors to overwinter. They seem most attracted to light colored houses. Sadly, a good number end up in vacuums as people have a problem with insects in the home. We don’t exactly welcome them but we don’t vacuum them either. Some are allowed to stay and some get escorted back outdoors.
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I haven’t heard of lots of them coming indoors here and I simply couldn’t bear to vacuum them.. no way! It amazes me how many ladybirds you must have where you are!
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We see them often enough during the warmer season, but it is amazing when all of a sudden you find them by the dozen, by the hundred, or at times even more.
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Wow!
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