Ladybird, Ladybird, Fly Away Home...?

Sticking with the entomological theme of the previous post for the time being (though I can't help wondering why entomology isn't the study of walking, talking trees rather than insects), the brief splash of warm weather at the weekend seemed to trigger the hatching of a veritable kaleidoscope of strangely-coloured and unusually marked ladybirds.

A wee bit of research indicates that they are Harlequin Ladybirds Harmonia axyridis which is supposed to be bad news as they are regarded as an invasive non-native species with the potential to out-compete native ladybirds. 

Yeah, the nasty little foreign b*****ds!  Coming over here, eating our aphids...!  Whatever next?

Well, call me unpatriotic, but I don't really care whether these guys are technically 'invaders' and not 'indiginous'.  They're pretty, they are eating the aphids on my fruit trees, bless their glossy little wing cases, and I'm not squishing them just because they can't trace their family trees back to a creepy crawly ancestor mooching about in Boudicca's back garden.  I don't have any time for racism when it's applied to my fellow human beings, so I'm damned if I'm going to persecute insects on that basis.

Metamorphosis - larva transforming into a beetle

Most of my ornamentals and edibles in the plant department aren't 'native' either, but am I going to dig them up and expel them any time soon?  I think not. 

I like grey squirrels too, and not in stews and casseroles being served at restaurants trying to be trendy or edgy, but scampering about in trees and parks and even raiding the bird table and robbing the nuts off the hazel tree.  Thanks to their habit of burying food and forgetting where they've stashed it (which invites debate on how they do compete so effectively, does it not?), I have a good supply of young hazel trees ready for transplanting, so in future years there will be nuts enough for us to share.  I even have one as my ident on my Flick photostream!

I'm delighted to say that I'm not alone in this respect.  Thanks to a recent Guardian article (of course I'm a Guardian reader!  What else could I read - it ain't going to be the Daily Mail, is it?) on the proposed culling of grey squirrels, I found this brilliantly argued and forthrightly funny article by naturalist and TV presenter Chris Packham.

 http://www.wildlifeextra.com/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=2&listcatid=11&listitemid=3959&live=0#cr

Towards the end of the article, Chris writes: "A serious, even custodial sentence awaits anyone deliberately releasing non native species into the wild; this even applies if you nurse a Grey squirrel back to health and let it go again; that's fine, okay... Well, what about the six hundred thousand Ring-necked Pheasants turned out every year just so they can be blown out of the skies, or get run over, whichever comes first? Non-natives that support a complete industry, a whole economy... Oh, yeah, well that's different isn't it mate. Funny that, one rule for rats another for big money and influential people who like to kill things - certain ugly parallels wouldn't you say?"

Right on, Packham!  Seriously, Chris mate, right on!