LADYBUG: HOUSE FINCH VISITOR MAKES ITS HOME IN GRAPEVINE WREATH

We have a visitor at our house who has made herself completely at home. Furthermore, she has had the audacity to build her own home without even asking, and has furnished it.

You see, we have one of those grapevine decorations on our front door. This visitor is a house finch, a bird that only in recent years has moved into this part of the country. Their numbers are growing like crabgrass in a new lawn. No wonder. Read on.

This saucy little lady took a liking to our door decoration. We began to notice material on the porch floor beneath it. At first we couldn't figure how the grassy stuff could break free.

Then the mystery was solved. Peering at the top of the decoration one day we found a nest. Lady finch had built herself a home. A day or so later, a tiny pale blue egg appeared. Then another until there were five. No wonder there are so many house finches, cousins of the Purple finch.

Hot weather turned to cold. We couldn't see that Lady Finch was spending much time on the nest and began to accuse her of being a negligent mother. The days went on. Still five eggs.

Then one morning we looked again in the nest. There, no larger than a dime, was this ugly, naked little creature, barely moving. Four eggs remained. A day or two later, another baby and another until all five birds had hatched.

Lady Finch remained skittish. We quit using the front door. When we stepped from the garage, she flew off the nest. Often when we peeked inside she was not there. Didn't that lady bird know how to take care of those kids? But you know what? Those kids are alive and kicking. She must know more about being a mama than we do. They fill the tiny nest. Their bills show yellow and they squirm around all over each other.

We don't see her feeding her babies, but then we shy away from the front door and enter the house through the garage. We have tried to steer our callers that way, but are not always successful. A new mother, you see, needs her privacy.

Stay tuned. We will keep you posted on Lady Finch and her brood.

Ladybug Invasion

Several people in the area have complained about an invasion of ladybugs in their homes. One talked of finding them in a not-too-often-used cottage and another told of finding deceased ones in a well lived in home.

It happens not only in this area, but seems to have become a general problem in many places. Chip Tynan of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis has researched the situation and gave the following explanation in his column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

The multicolored Asian lady beetle was introduced into the Southern states sometime in the 1980's and moved into Missouri in 1992. The adult beetle is about one-fourth-inch long with the typical oval ladybug shape. Its coloration ranges from yellow to orange, but its spotting is highly variable.

Like other lady beetles, this Asian predator feeds on aphids and other pests during the growing season, but come winter, the adults gather and hibernate, often in huge numbers.

In their native range, they gather, often in huge numbers, prefer cracks and crevices in cliffs. However, they will enter any opening that provides a dark, undisturbed safe haven. On warm sunny days they tend to move about and our exceptionally mild winter has contributed to their activity, Tynan wrote.

A friend told us that once inside a house they will not harm people, pets or furnishings, but can be an extreme nuisance., In one house, she said, they were crawling on the curtains, lamp shades and elsewhere. Another person reported vacuuming up hundreds of them from window sills, corners and in closets.

The Seattle Times reported that when exterminators arrived at one house they found more than 100,000 of the orange and black creatures crawling through the house and inside wall. It was the third year of ladybug invasion throughout the Puget Sound region.