Even when I was very little I didn’t like the ladybug nursery rhyme—the one that says, “Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home, your house is on fire and your children will burn.” That’s the variation I was most familiar with. I was told that allowing ladybugs to fly away would bring good luck, but they never seemed to need any encouragement to leave. They’d land on my hand or arm and then fly away even without the threat of family tragedy.
I was reminded of all this when, on my way to work, I passed a small cluster of ladybugs on a wall. They were too spread out to get a picture of the group, but it’s a place where I’ve seen swarms of them before. There’s a large sugar maple next to the wall. Maybe ladybugs are drawn to sugar maples because the aphids and other bugs they like to eat are drawn to sugar maples or maybe it’s just a coincidence that my parents planted a sugar maple in the front yard of the house where I spent most of my childhood and it was regularly covered with swarms of ladybugs.
Based on Google Maps that sugar maple is still there, though my parents moved out more than twenty years ago, and it hasn’t gotten a lot bigger than it was when I was young. The magnolia tree they planted a few years later is there too. I remember the first time I found ladybugs on it and their funny little larvae, and their funnier accordion-like chrysalises. The chrysalises were fastened to the tree at one end and if I tapped them with my finger they’d bounce up and down as though saying, “Get lost, I’m pupatin’ here!”
I collected some of the larvae and put them in a jar with leaves and twigs and took them to my room so I could watch them build their chrysalises. Within a few days fully grown ladybugs emerged and I felt guilty. I had to release them in the cold and I was afraid keeping them in my warm room had accelerated their development. Watching the ones on the tree, though, assured me that this was normal. Some ladybugs lay eggs in the spring or summer then the eggs hatch and they form swarms in the late fall or early winter. They don’t worry about fire because they’re used to the cold.
Here’s Google’s view of my childhood home:
Source: Google Street View
It was wonderful to fly away to your home here, Chris.
Thank you for flying in, Ann.