Great Autmn, to date
 

For some reason there seems lots of ladybirds around. Also a few flutter
byes, mainly red admirals. As there are very few flowers still around I
was wondering what they were living on. Puzzle solved, I was down the
garden near my pear tress, there they were feeding on the rotten
windfalls, I did not know that that was a food source for them..
--
Residing on low ground in North Staffordshire

Great Autmn, to date
 

"Moonraker" wrote:
For some reason there seems lots of ladybirds around. Also a few
flutter byes, mainly red admirals. As there are very few flowers still
around I was wondering what they were living on. Puzzle solved, I was
down the garden near my pear tress, there they were feeding on the
rotten windfalls, I did not know that that was a food source for
them..

Red Admirals can get quite sloshed on fermenting windfall fruit; they
love it. Have seen one or two but any others are probably all in someone
else's orchard. :)

I've been invaded by hosts of ladybirds all summer which is probably why
we've barely seen an aphid around. Now they're hiding everywhere and
each time I prune a shrub or cut back a perennial they emerge in droves.
They particulary seem to congregate in the euonymus that climbs up the
back wall of our garage - probably as it faces south and will be a warm
and sheltered place to hibernate.

--
Sue

There were huge numbers of hibernating ladybirds I kept on running into last winter, they seemed to be everywhere, outdoors and indoors. I suspect a lot of them are this introduced Harlequin Ladybird, which seems to be very variable in appearance. Though still nothing to compare the great ladybird plagues that I remember from the past. One year in the mid-90s there were so many ladybirds in places that you couldn't walk along the street without crunching many with every footstep. In 1976 they were very numerous, and got so thirsty in the drought they took to biting people.

The butterflies have been very good this year. I was in central Europe in August and I couldn't believe how many there were there. Unfortunately also a plague of wasps.

Have a look at the 2nd October entry he
Martin's Moths
Red admirals having a good time on discarded holiday liqueurs.