Sunday at Bill's Mother's: 12th Oct 2025
Swarm warning. Wildlife loses £10 billion. River light. Tram lines.
Morning. An up to the minute post today with more niche exclusives. How many billions of pounds nature funding is down since Brexit and austerity, for example, and a clear hint we may one day have 20mph on all residential streets, and trams to Stocksbridge and Chesterfield.
In the packed post below, we also have lantern animals in Shire Brook Valley, shadows, clouds and river banks from local artist Roger Nowell, and what’s really happening with ladybirds.
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Swarm Warning
Were you buzzed by tiny red and black helicopters this weekend?
There’s a loveliness of ladybirds in the air. Unless they’re Harlequin invaders, in which case they might nip your leg or leave a yellow stain on your wallpaper. (Loveliness is the official collective term for the savage predatory insects beloved by children).
Ladybird invasions have been filmed on ClickTok and corralled into Russian invader headlines in our more excitable national media this week, so I turned to our friends at Sorby Natural History Society for the real story.
“The ‘ladybird invasion’ has been grossly exaggerated by the tabloids. There are always a lot of ladybirds around at this time of year. Most of them are just looking for a safe place to spend the winter,” says one of my contacts, adding a cheerful 🐞emoji to emphasise his calm but appreciative approach.
Adult ladybirds hibernate when the days darken (the insect term for this winter break is diapause), often gathering together in secluded dry areas, behind tree bark or rocks, or in your cellar or outhouse.
But on sunny autumn days (like this weekend) they fly around, bouncing off your head every few seconds, trying to find those warm winter homes while maybe feeding up a little to prepare for their long seasonal slowdown.
The Russian invader headline comes from the Harlequin Ladybird, a non-native species from Asia and Siberia, trialled a few years ago as a biological pest control to reduce aphids for farmers in the USA, and then northern Europe.
The trial was very successful for the Siberian Harlequin, which liked the USA so much it became more numerous than most of the Native American ladybirds, or ladybugs as they call them over there.
The Harlequin found its way to England twenty years ago, and boomed into one of our most common ladybirds too, at the expense of our native species, which it scarily eats during its youthful stage earlier in the year. (It also outcompetes our 40 or so native ladybirds for aphids.)
Unlike most native ladybirds, it’ll give you a nip when it feels like it, and if alarmed it spurts out an unpleasant smelly yellow fluid from its leg joints.
“There’s clearly a glut of Harlequin Ladybirds, I saw thousands in the churchyard at Bolsterstone last week,” said Paul Richards of Sorby. Take care out there, Bolstertone.
“I’ve seen their larvae eating the pupae of native British species. Fortunately I’ve also seen a lot of native 7- Spot Ladybirds too, among the many invaders.”
By which he means an invasive species which has been living here for 20 years. But this year additional migrants from Europe flew over to the UK, he says.
Last year’s mild winter meant more adult ladybirds survived to breed this spring, and then the hot spring and summer brought a boom in aphids, which encouraged a boom in ladybirds of all kinds to eat them. Harlequins have particularly taken advantage, not least because they have several broods of loveliness in hot years.
“This surge is their offspring making ready to overwinter, enhanced by European migrants flying over. Make whatever political statement about this that you will,” says Paul.
Identification: Harlequin Ladybirds are big (the best part of a centimetre long and 5-6mm wide), but come in a crazy mixture of black, orange or red with various spots. Unlike most native ladybirds of their size, they usually have brown legs instead of black, and often have a black M shape on the pronotum, the area between the head and the wing cases.
UK Ladybird Survey - take part here.
Spending Review
We like to be cheerful and positive round at Bill’s Mother’s. Last night, hordes of people from all over the city marvelled at a series of lantern sculptures at Shire Brook Nature Reserve, once known as Sheffield’s forgotten valley.
“There were over 700 people there. It was insane!!” says organiser of the event Meghan Tipping, who also writes our Beginner Birder column.
“It was so wonderful! People were just blown away - all ages, big groups!” Meghan tells me in a late night message.
The lanterns will head off to new homes at local sites such as Woodhouse library, and over the next week or so a new sculpture trail will be installed at Shire Brook, which I hope to cover in a near future post.
Surely then, all is well in the world of nature conservation and recovery, not least since the hard working volunteers of Shire Brook have been hoping for this kind of interest in their spectacular nature reserve for years.
In reality, improving the landscape and helping the wildlife at Shire Brook, and getting more locals down to appreciate it, is now happening simply because a canny collective of local volunteers, council officers and enthusiasts from not for profits like Sheffield Wildlife Trust, Sheffield Swift Network and South Yorkshire Badger Group outcompeted other countrywide bidders to get hold of £1,112,155 from the government’s Species Survival Fund.
Patchwork temporary funding like this can make a real difference to a wild place, but these days, the continuation of nature recovery projects is usually picked up by local volunteers once the funding ends. I’ve had conservation experts telling me since the early days of austerity that the changes needed to protect our wild places and wildlife can’t rely on temporary and competitive grants.
I received some carefully collated figures this week, from a conservationist working through government data, to try and work out what’s happened to environmental conservation and protection over the last 15 years. My contact wanted to present his findings in the language that matters to contemporary decisions makers.
It’s lost around £10 billion in real terms funding since 2010, he says, due to austerity cuts in national and local government, and by losing EU grants that haven’t been replaced since Brexit.
So expertise has been lost, jobs have been decimated and regulation has gone missing, when we see the crises in the climate and natural world getting worse every year.
“The sector is being quietly cut to ribbons at a time when we are protesting in the streets about the nature and climate emergency, and trying to get as much health benefit as we can from the great outdoors,” he says. “Bonkers,” he adds, diplomatically, when other more appropriate words might be chosen. “And no-one is really tracking this at a country-wide level.”
Meanwhile, volunteers and enthusiasts are doing their best all over Sheffield, and across the country. But that £10 billion needed to restore our nature budget to where it was 15 years ago is worth remembering: that’s about two months of the current year’s government defence budget.
Roll Out The Barrow
My recent piece for Sheffield Tribune subscribers covered how Broomhall might illustrate the future of a walking, wheeling and cycling city. I spoke to council transport chair Ben Miskell for the piece, and he seemed refreshingly honest that things will have to change, not least in favourite of public transport.
The Tribune post didn’t have space for bus and tram lines, so here are some of the things Ben Miskell told us he wants to see:
New tram lines to Stocksbridge via the Upper Don Valley rail line, and to Chesterfield via the Barrow Hill line.
20mph limits in all residential areas, along with more school streets (where cars are excluded at drop off and pick up times).
More electric buses once the city takes them over in 2027. The new bus fleet will have cameras to improve safety for nearby wheeling and walking people too..
More camera enforcement of School Streets, starting soon in Broomhill.
A roll out of side road zebra crossings - much cheaper than standard zebras.
Better powers to enforce pavement parking bans, along with more attention to the issue by South Yorkshire Police.
A trial of Play Streets, where motor vehicles are only allowed in at very slow speed for access for a few hours, so kids and families can take to their local streets and play. (Email transport@sheffield.gov.uk to set up a trial, he says).
On Holiday, All The Time
When you’re from Hull, says Roger Nowell, living in Sheffield is: “like being on holiday all the time.”
Roger is an artist, covering Sheffield’s north western River Valleys and the Peak District, mostly. We’ve run some of this pictures before, but after chatting about the Rivelin Valley, he’s sent us several examples of his new work this week.
You walk along the Rivelin, with its shadows and light, with rock pools of wild swimmers or Dippers and centuries of industrial decay, “and you can’t quite believe it’s there, on your doorstep” he says.
We’ll have a Sunday supplement for our full members hopefully this evening, with more of his pictures, and more on how he goes about his work. You can find Roger, and buy any of his as yet unsold pictures, at his Instagram page.
More What’s On Out There (from Sunday 12th October)
A tiny selection from our new (and regularly updated) What’s On Out There news and listings post for September and October.
Sun 12th - Yorkshire Rose Womens Cycle Rides
Mon 13th - Friends of Whirlow Brook Park - Volunteer Morning
Tues 14th - Friends of Ecclesall Woods volunteer & footpath repair session
Weds 15th - Longshaw Social Walk
Thurs 16th - SRWT Volunteer Day - Woodhouse Washlands Litter Pick
Fri 17th - Friends of Whirlow Brook Park - Fungi Walk
Sat 18th - CycleBoost cycle training (beginners & learn to ride) at Greenhill Park
Sun 19th - Steel City Trail 10 (10K Trail Race, Bradway)
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