We were recently at the beach along the Chicago lakefront. Late August is a nice time to find lots of dead bugs. . . especially ladybugs along the shoreline. It was an average Tuesday, last week of August. It did storm in the morning, so the sand was very wet, wet enough for the kids to make sand castles without water, well into the afternoon when we arrived. I don't think we found this abundant supply of ladybugs because of the rain. I think this is a seasonal effect and our timing is spot on.
Ladybug Collecting at the End of Summer
Baby girl was very helpful finding all the bugs and gathering them into our bug jar. The lady's are along the shoreline, where the waves meet the sand and leave marks along the shoreline. They are usually found upside down with their wings unfolded, exposed and their elytra (the hard wing shell) also up / exposing the body. These most likely drowned because we saw so many walking towards the shoreline. The water was warm for this time of year, but still stunned them as they went into the waves. Lady's overwinter in hiding places and lay eggs in spring. They get their water for hydration from the few on plants and from what they eat. I still haven't uncovered why they were so drawn to the water.
LIFE IS STILL EXCITING AT OUR HOUSE!
With more insects. . .
AMI Studios Chicago
It's mostly baby girls videos and here slime making, she spends time with friends on coloring activities and make good choices while having fun. During the covid stay at home orders - she had many many many facetime pandemic playdates - we made time work for us and not be bored.
Ladybug Collecting at the End of Summer
Some of the bugs "came to" in the jar and flew out. While we do capture live bugs as specimens for the collection in a kill jar, there were so many dead specimens, we let the ones that could fly out.Ladybug Collecting at the End of Summer, a photo by areyousureaboutthatblog on Flickr
An added benefit to this pic is you can see what bug collecting in a kill jar looks like. These Lady Bug were rinsed and paper towl dried at home to get rid of their sandy bodies. A gentle spray wash in the sink, no soap, just a strainer and water. Ladies outer shell, their Elyptra wing covers, can withstand this sand cleaning. Then put on a towel to dry.
These jars are plastic, and made into kill jars when you add a cotton pad that is wet with Acetone (nail polish remover). When we finally put the lid on the jar, any injured bugs or bugs that awoke late, we wanted to treat humanely.
We collected at Loyola beach in 2013. I had found 7-8 bugs and when I started pinning them, it turned out to be 27 bugs. Here, with these ladybug's, I'm guesstimating we easily have 60-80 insects. There's a few wasps, honey bees and cucumber beetles in the mix also. And there's a crane fly we found dead in the bathroom before we left the beach (yes my kids use the beach bathroom and NOT the lake!).
Make mistakes, breathe and laugh out loud.
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