While the family was frolicking in the water at Pismo Beach over the weekend, my 5-year-old daughter looked at the tiny waves on the inside and shouted, “Look — surfing ladybugs!”
I looked and, sure enough, there were all kinds of ladybugs in the water. Of course, I’m pretty sure they weren’t surfing — being dead and all. But the more I looked, the more ladybugs I saw.
On the beach there were thousands of them. Maybe tens of thousands. At one point, I was standing still, and a dozen of them started to crawl on my feet.
The ladybug invasion was a mystery to me until I read a post on the Orange County Register’s surf blog. Apparently, they had a lady bug presence down south as well.
To quote the O.C. blog: “Newport Beach Lifeguard Capt. Jim Turner said the ladybugs give birth during this time, and some are blown to the coast when the Santa Ana winds whip. Though the winds haven’t been too strong, they’ve had enough force to push the bugs to the sand in the past few days.”
So there you have it: Warm weather=ladybugs.
A little about the ladybug:
They feed on insects that are considered garden pests; If a ladybug lands on you, it’s supposed to bring good luck (so I guess I get, like, 12 good luck things headed my way); The ladybug’s color is supposed to ward off predators.
And, as I discovered this weekend, they’re not particularly great surfers.
Photo: Jean Luza by way of the O.C. Beach Blog
Posted on April 21st, 2009 by Pat
Filed under: Surf stuff
Ladybugs also invaded the Toro Creek area near Cayucos this weekend. There were millions of them there! Hopefully enough ladybugs will survive the winds and the waves to protect all those young tomato and other vegetable plants out there that really need them!
Where I grew up, in the Portland, Ore. area, ladybugs are regular inside visitors every spring.
You’ll see huge clumps of them huddled in the corners of ceilings. They must be looking for warmth, or something.
Ladybugs are great. They make for great paintings as well as bringing good luck . It’s sad that they die, but it sounds like their reproducing a lot so that’s good.
I was just at Jones Beach on Long Island and I saw the massacre of ladybugs against the shoreline. they were clumped together for the most part in sections and only a few were living in each bunch as we walked the beach
Help: Our house is being overrun with these ladybugs. Come and get them or I’m going to hire an exterminator. I kill between 5-20 each day.