your Salvation Ladybugs. Ladybugs. Ladybugs. Hello and welcome to episode 39 of Hidden Wings and Bloodlust, a podcast about Lady Bird's and Ladybugs around the world. I'm your host, Rachel. This is part one of a two part episode. Part two will be available in two days and it's a very entertaining interview with CJ Roma And I was originally going to do that episode as a standalone episode, but because I wanted to get episode 36 up as soon as possible, I rescheduled it.
So for that reason, some of the same points are making this episode are also going to be talked about in the interview. My podcast recommendation for this week is the Unguided podcasts.
If you want to hear a lively, humorous discussion on Scottish politics every week from a progressive pro independence perspective, then this is the podcast for you and I've actually written a few articles and pieces of their website and recorded a few things for the older version of their podcast, which is still up. So check it out and check out their back catalog if you've got time.
The hosts include Deborah who sings the theme tune for the podcast, David McClement, the only Green party member in Scotland who doesn't have a bike and sociologists, brian Finley. For one of the recent episodes, I appeared on their show to talk about the brilliant film pride, which is all about the campaign, lesbians and gays support the miners during the miners strike in 1984 to 1985.
It's such a wonderful film and we had a very, very wide ranging in depth chat about the film on the podcast as well as a great laugh. So go check it out now. If you're a fan of Lady Bird's or a regular listener of the show and you live in the UK, Then you probably have heard something about the year 1976. It was 31 years after World War II ended in the news. It was the year when Labor Prime Minister Harold Wilson resigned citing pastoral reasons.
The Gear Apple inc was founded by steve jobs, steve Wozniak and Donald Wayne. The year the Seychelles became independent from the UK and the year Nasa unveiled the first space shuttle in the charts. There was don't Go Breaking my Heart with Elton, john and kiki dee silly love songs by paul McCartney and wings, You sexy thing by Hot chocolate. Play that funky music by Wild Cherry and bohemian rhapsody by Queen. And in a foreshadowing of what was to come.
There was even a topless danish girl band which was featured on the pages of the Sun and other tabloids called the Lady birds Celebrities born in 1976 include Chadwick, Boseman Benedict cumberbatch, Colin, Farrell, Brazilian footballer, Ronaldo and Reese Witherspoon And in the world film. Some of the 20th century's best known classics came out in this year, including King Kong Carrie Logan's run and taxi driver, but that isn't why you're listening to the show.
It might have been a great year for music and film and so on. But 1976 was the year when the UK was invaded by 23.65 billion lady birds. And in this episode, I'm going to explore what happened and why the impact on the country and how it was depicted in the media. So 1976 was one of the hottest years on record in the UK. And bear in mind this was before global warming properly started to make its effect known From June to August.
This is one of the driest, sunniest and warmest summers the entire 20th century, with only a few places registering more than their average summer rainfall, creating a severe drought. 1976 has gone down in history as being the second hottest average summer in England since records began with the hottest average summer being 2018. And according to the Central England temperature record, it is still the hottest average summer on record For 15 days between 23 June and seven July temperatures.
Somewhere in the UK would reach 32.2° and the hottest day of all was on three July 1976 in Cheltenham. When the temperature reached a scorching 35.9°. The previous year, 1975 had also been extremely dry and the winter of 1975, had been exceptionally dry during the winter and spring. And bear in mind. This is the UK and the spring, which is March april and may is very famous for its wet weather. Many areas had no rain at all. I can't even imagine what that would be like. No rain at all.
In March april and may imagine that It was the driest period in English history with data stretching back two centuries. It's the driest it's ever been for two centuries. If not ever.
The drought was at its worst in August 1976 and parts of the southwest went 45 days without any rain reservoirs, Lakes and even rivers dried up affecting farmers, crops such as strawberries and cereals and causing them to fail, killing wildlife and livestock and even spreading diseases such as botulism as desperate animals try to drink infected water. It is estimated that among humans, excess deaths for 1976, we're 20% above normal because of the heat wave.
The excessive heat and lack of water in East Anglia, the dry soil for the crops blew away during the wind. You know, the huge gust of wind just blew away the soil for the farmer's crops. And it's estimated that because of the dry conditions over half of the sorry heaths caught fire between june and august and fires are often left to run because of the lack of water to put them out In East.
Sussex the record breaking drought resulted in 40% of chalk grassland just becoming bare ground for that entire year. And as a result of this drought, Parliament passed the drought act. This gave the government emergency powers both to ban host pipes, which has happened several times when I was growing up, although not so much in the last few years. And to reduce or even turn off household or even commercial water supplies according to country fold dot com.
When the broken reservoirs dried up in southeast Wales Mains, water supply switched off for up to 17 hours per day. And in some places, patrol cars would drive around looking for people using hoses and issue them with a £400 fine in some areas, not washing your car was practically a patriotic duty. According to country file stand pipes had to be installed.
These are these outdoor pipes where water is dispensed and in areas which are not known for their lack of rainfall, usually such as the east Midlands, east Anglia south Yorkshire and devon One pipe supplied up to 20 houses, just one outdoor pipe. And you know, whereas now, you know, we've been having a lot of restrictions of the pandemic and not with with Covid.
And there's catchphrases that the government used like stay home, protect the NHS save lives or hands face space to sort of remind you to keep your distance and wear a mask. And that Back in 1976, the government had a different catch rays, which you couldn't really escape and it was save water shower with a friend.
And you know, I've actually I've looked at photos of 1976 when I was researching this episode and there's like signs on all the roads saying like drought area, don't use water, safe water, all of this. But if there's one thing that many people who lived through this momentous year remember above everything else, it's the apocalyptic swarms of lady bird's Lady Birds weren't the only insect to see a huge boost in their numbers during 1976. During the hot, dry spring and summer.
They were massive clouds of butterflies which had benefited from the growth of the plants during the warmer than average spring. But according to Simon Leather, professor of Entomology specializing in aphids at harper Adams, University changes in the production of cereals. Specifically the introduction of maris, hunter wheat could have caused a population explosion in the numbers of aphids. The warmer than average spring also contributed to a boost in numbers.
And indeed, there are accounts of huge swarms of aphids in the sky, turning the sky green and making up for the lack of greenery on the ground. But by june and july onwards, the lack of water and the boiling temperatures meant that the aphids were left without food and soon began to starve and die. But not before huge numbers had already been eaten by seven. Spot ladybird, especially the larvae. And this began to fuel a surge in lady bird numbers Until the year 1976.
Ladybird numbers typically exploded every 10 to 15 years according to the British Entomological Natural History Society. But as the food supply literally began to dry up and the number of aphids dwindled lady birds began to wander through the country and as the abdomens of seven sports are black, you know, they've got these black abdomens and black legs. When people looked up they would literally see the sky blackened by swarms and swarms of lady bird's.
Now from conversations I've had with people who are around at the time, seven spots don't seem to have been the only lady birds which experienced an increase in their numbers in 1976. In part two of this episode, my guest C. J. Tells me about how lady birds with reversed colors which could have been pie lady birds or two spots and also these beige and yellow lady bird so many different types, but also very commonplace, But what everyone remembers is the seven spots at the same time.
A heatwave was also going on in europe In France, 1976 is also known as the great drought With the dry weather starting very early on in the year.
According to one French website, I looked at the dry conditions in europe were due to an anti cyclone usually covering the Sahara and parts of the mediterranean which moved up towards europe, bringing dry tropical air towards the continent, cereal crops fell by half And as opposed to 304 mm of rainfall in Paris on an average year, there was only 121 mm.
These extreme weather conditions meant that the seven spot ladybird population was about to increase further as lady bird's from France and other parts of europe flew over the channel and washed up on the beach.
Some of them lost energy before they reach the seaside and drowned in the sea, filling the beaches and sea of southern and eastern England with dead lady birds, The ones which did land both from the UK in europe were desperate for food and moisture And on the beaches in Brittany and in other parts of northern France. A similar 7th spot invasion was taking place Now, usually lady birds as we all know or so. So insects, they're very calm, especially seven spots.
And that's why Children really seem to like them. Why? It's always really nice to have a ladybird on your hand. Have a ladybird on your finger. Like let it run up your top of your finger and let it fly away. For example. But as they were so hungry, they actually began to view anything as a source of food, including humans.
There are accounts of holidaymakers running screaming from the beach as flocks of lady bird's gave them what's described as very, very sharp bites and indeed this actually does seem to have traumatized. Some people and given them a fear of lady birds, which is a condition known as Coxon led phobia. The lady birds also try to seek moisture because it was so dry by drinking salt water and they even landed on people and tried to drink their sweat.
And as you can imagine, given the hot conditions, there are a lot of very sweaty people around during the Summer of 1976 Headline in the Birkenhead News, a local paper based near Liverpool Red freak swarms of lady bird's caused alarm in Birkenhead this week.
The lady birds, which are usually regarded as an attractive insect and the gardener's friend took on a new menacing identity as they swarmed locust fashion over the town in the thick moving mass of red, the swarms of lady birds were described as making the pavements into a sea of red sand.
Newspaper accounts at the time even described how lady birds were stopping the fun at fun fairs with some outside fairground rides having to be closed and for our international listeners, fun fairs are like a kind of traveling budget theme park that typically got candy floss, dodging cars, ferris wheels, games, you get the idea sort of hot dog stands, all that sort of thing.
But in this case instead of an afternoon of fun, the lady birds, many of whom were very hungry, caused people to run away screaming at many golf clubs. They actually had to be swept off the putting greens before the game could start. And the large numbers of lady bird's cause disruption to businesses with some restaurant and cafe kitchens being shut because of the floors being littered with dead lady birds.
And you can imagine, you know how, when you step on a ladybird or disturb it anyway, it has this yellow liquid coming out of it. You can just imagine like the stating that would have occurred the smell, it would just have been a nightmare. And there was a lot of economic disruption. For example, lady birds would fall out of customer's hair and in so many shops, their descriptions of how they had to be swept up throughout the day and either thrown away or placed outside.
And construction work even had to stop on some building sites With one workman describing how in a quote to the local paper that they seem to be multiplying all the time. So in the mainstream media, as you can imagine, especially in tabloids such as The Sun or The Mirror for international listeners. The tabloid newspapers in the UK are mass circulation newspapers with a lot of readership and often regarded as being quite sensational.
The swarms of insects actually evoked memories of World War II, Which had ended only 31 years before with cartoons depicting lady birds as Nazi invaders from Germany, even with swastikas on their backs and you know, anything to do with the war or invasion. It's very, very prevalent in the popular culture of the UK, especially back then, it would have been the reference that people kind of went to. So 1976 as it was so recent. The war memory was still so fresh in everyone's minds.
Some of the headlines talk about how horrific the events were and even describe these hungry seven spots as man eating lady bird's scaring people at the beach. A lot of reference was made to the fact that the lady birds were coming over from France in many cases in other parts of europe, although some actually flew inevitably the other direction as well because lady bear's, we're from here, we're searching for moisture and sort of attracted towards the sea in europe.
And inevitably there were other visitors from europe and even further south which took advantage. For example, swifts, swallows and house martins fed on the huge swarms of lady birds and aphids filling the sky as these birds are migratory and they spend most of their time in the air. They only usually stop to breed in the case of swifts and they need to actually catch their food as they fly.
They've developed a tolerance to the defense of chemicals of lady birds and other flying insects with these sort of defensive, bitter tasting chemicals and so on. They can't always choose what they're eating when they're on the wing. So they have to have evolved such a tolerance as there are so many lady bird's available to study, scientists were now able to spend so much more time than usual studying them as there is no shortage of specimens for them to catch.
In 1977, for example, a scientific paper came out on the red and orange pigments in the wings of seven spots known as carotenoids. And you might have heard of this from the vitamin E. Beta carotene or vitamin A. Which is found in carrots. And it was found that these colorings and the lady birds were hydrocarbons. They're not of plant origin, so they don't get these chemicals from eating any plant matter.
And in fact the color in the lady bird's wings are actually produced by symbiotic microorganisms. So I mean these are actually similar to the good bacteria in our own sort of systems, which is really, really incredible. You know, these bacteria help us digest food and all of that. And it turns out lady birds have something similar helping them as well.
So this paper acknowledges the huge amount of lady bird's available the previous year as helping with the research While 1976 was an exceptional year in many ways. I remember when I was a kid around 1995 and they're huge swarms of seven spots along our driveway and in the garden during the hot summer and all over the roads.
So as I've already said, according to the royal into political society prior to 1976, these buildups of the Lady Bird Population And the resulting explosion would occur every 15 years or so. And Then after 1976, they never happened to that same extent, but they have happened on a local scale and on a regional scale. So for example, it's happened in Norfolk. It's happened, you know where I lived when I was growing up in Buckinghamshire.
It's happened of in coastal areas again, but not over the whole country at the same time. So you've got to ask what is actually happening here and what explains these massive swarms.
So In 2009, 32 years after the infamous Ladybird Invasion, similar events played out on a much smaller scale, on a cruise ship near Morocco, traveling to Lisbon over the course of six days on this cruise ship, several 1007 spots descended onto the upper two top decks to such an extent that the ship had to be fumigated.
Although even after this fumigation, several pairs of mating lady birds and single lady birds remained alive and it's thought that these lady birds might have been coming out of hibernation.
Although another theory suggests that updrafts or air currents around mountainous areas might carry the Beatles on the wind to elevated areas and a study by Ivo Holodeck, who is the author of a book about lady bird behavior and ecology, plus a team of other scientists noted that very frequently during the swarms, seven spots are drawn to seize lake speeches and areas around bodies of water.
And indeed during this cruise, the uninvited guests were drawn towards the pool area and this phenomenon has been noted near lakes near new york too. And during 1976 we can see that the coastal towns, the towns where everyone was going to the beach and trying to have a nice holiday were hit particularly hard by these of Ladybird invaders. And in this american study around the lakes in new york, I actually learned they invented a term for it.
It's called the ladybug wash up just because it's such a known phenomenon. So I mean at any one time billions of lady birds can end up washing up on the coastline. So ho deck found that there are three main types of long distance flights carried out by cox Snell ids or 80 birds. Two of these relate to either traveling to overwinter, excited to hibernate or leaving it to breed. These flights happen regularly. Sometimes I think I've described how the seven spots fly up and down a mountain.
You know, they fly up to hibernate or they might fly down to breed or sort of vice versa. And these flights happen regularly. But the third type of flight doesn't actually happen regularly according to a set pattern, hoda terms. The third type of flight as an appetite if or trivial flight and it's triggered off by over population and a shortage of prey.
So they've got a, you know, they go off flying in search of aphids and he views it as specific to Fido Vegas or avid eating lady birds because if you think about lady bird's like 24 spot that only eats plants, Those lady birds usually stay in one place for most of their lives and even 16 spots. And lady bird of the moth of very diet don't really travel very far over the course of their lives.
And ho deck describes how a single ladybird can produce numerous descendants if it's laying eggs in habitats, ricin aphids And as we've seen in 1976, the aphids were so numerous that they swarmed as well. So many lady birds survived to adulthood. And then as soon as they hatched out they have absolutely nothing to eat. But before the lady bird's p pay, the lobby will eat virtually all of the aphids.
And sometimes they actually do eat all of the aphids and then they have to turn to cannibalism or find other prey or other food which is perhaps less suitable for them. So after the adults hatch out of the pupa, there are very few or even no aphids left. So then they've got to start to fly long distances to find more aphids.
And if this happens over a large region as it did in 1976, where it was basically the whole country, the lady birds will form swarms and during hotter weather, they flying on the wind and they're taken upwards towards the higher regions of the atmosphere and they're able to travel even greater distances along these air currents.
The lake or sea breezes will mean that more and more lady birds end up in the water or washed up on the shore line as they're carrying the lady bird's down towards this body of water.
So this is interesting actually because according to a paper by the Lost Ladybug Project, which is a north american Organization dedicated to conserving endangered lady birds such as the nine spot harlequins in seven spots especially, but also other lady birds as well appear able to survive after several days floating in freshwater. And it's only when the water temperature Goes below 13°, that massive numbers of Lady Bird's start dying.
So even in the water, they can actually end up surviving several days in some cases, especially if they've got something to cling onto. Like if they've got debris or leaves or something, they can, they can kind of stay a little bit more drier. But sadly, a huge number of lady bird's actually do die in these ladybug wash ups.
Sometimes it can be over a billion that die In any one event by like one lake and that gives rise to conservation concerns over what's being described as a massive loss of life.
And it's been theorized in ho decks paper that due to the harsh conditions of some of these very dry summers, that lady birds travel down to seas and lakes in search of water and when they're flying over the lake during the evening, the lake will call down more slowly and this differentiates the lake from the land and ends up just attracting more lady birds to fall onto the lake.
So how did this strange period in history actually end well after so many aphids spread at the start of the year fueled the explosive growth in the population of lady Bird's. Unsurprisingly, the lady birds ate many aphids. So you know, there were so many lady birds that they ended up. A lot of them just ended up starving.
Unfortunately, the harsh weather took its toll on the population and the plants the aphids were eating were often drying up and then with the lady birds had eaten all or nearly all of the aphids, they couldn't find enough aphids to eat. So they ended up dying on the roads, shops fun fairs and beaches of Britain. But then finally during the august bank holiday it started to rain and the drought finally ended. The rain continued for 10 days.
Jim Callaghan, who was the labor Prime Minister at the time had appointed a man called Dennis Howell to be the Minister for drought and Dennis how actually argued to keep the water restrictions going to allow all the reservoirs to full up. And he even predicted that these laws on the use of water would be needed until december. But as the rain started pouring down, he started to become ridiculed and he was nicknamed the Minister for floods.
But after such a harsh year in farming the rain also, even though it was a welcome event, the rain had a huge impact because many root vegetables, such as potatoes then has to be left in the ground due to all the heavy rain as they rotted in the ground And as far as the Lady Birds Go. Although many of them survived until 1977, the unsettled weather, unpredictable supply of aphids took its toll.
And of course, as we've seen on previous episodes where they're also fuels fungal infections and other diseases. So there's never been a year for lady birds as successful as 1976 ever since. And all of these of big cycles or population explosions haven't happened to the same extent nationally since that year.
And you know, every time there's something discussed about Lady Bird's in the national or even local media, you know, if someone notices a little bit more lady birds than usual, people say like, Oh, it's getting like 1976 again, or like, Oh, will we see another repeat of 1976? Look at all these lady birds, all of this sort of thing.
I even found a ghost story called the year of the ladybird, which is set in that year, just to illustrate what a grip it still has on the, on the imagination and Any time there's an unusually hot about of weather, it inevitably fuels the comparisons towards 1976 because that's just like, a such. such a, such an iconic event in a lot of people's minds, especially if they live through it. And Whenever I've read about 1976, because I was born in 1988, about 12 years after.
Whenever I've read about it, I've often wondered, could it actually happen again?
And according to Professor Helen Roy, if lady birds have experienced consistently cold winter, this fuels the population growth And in 2020 2021, the winter was unusually cold and while this starts to kill some lady birds, it also saves their lives because if there's a cold snap, once the lady birds have really woken up, that will mean a lot of them would have burned off their fat reserves already and there will be completely unprepared for another bout of cold weather and so they'll die.
But due to climate change as the Winters have been very mild the last few years with a lot of fluctuations in temperature and a lot of unsettled weather. This means that the 1976 style population explosion is quite unlikely. Another issue is that lady birds and aphids, life cycles need to be aligned as aphids can breed quickly. Whereas ladybird can take months to develop and only breed once or twice a year. So if they do so at the wrong time, it can mean there's not enough to eat.
These huge swarms of lady bird's do lead to a large number of lady birds dying and ending up in unsuitable places such as C. And what's interesting as well. While the summer of 1976 did cause a huge number of butterflies to hatch, it actually killed a huge number of butterflies off during the drought because the weather was so dry And it's been described as possibly the worst climatic event of the 20th century for them.
And so when I read stories about what happened in 1976, I feel quite sad because although it was a freak event at the time enough, so that it's been burned into the sort of collective memory of the UK. The fact is that summers like this are becoming more and more common. So much so that it's not even exceptional. And temperature records have been broken from from 1976.
So although it was hotter on average for a longer period, the individual temperatures are getting broken And in 2019 temperature records broken in the UK when the temperature reached 38.8° C for one day. And it seems to me that soon enough we won't even see this as exceptional. Like if you look at what's going on in America at the moment, you know, just temperature records are just being smashed all the time.
And when I think about the loss of lady birds and the loss of insects hearing about this time just seems even more poignant. If the weather is too dry, it means that insects can dry out. And so if, for example, a ladybird is in the pupa, the pupa can dry out during the period of extreme drought and it will make it difficult for it to get out of the pupa and so it will just be trapped in there.
So although it's easy enough to go into the garden and find insects, if you look hard enough, it's becoming ever more difficult for them to survive with habitat loss and the use of pesticides as well as climate change and more trees being cut down, placed with non native trees or sort of monocultures and more and more fields being built on or just being made completely inhospitable environment.
But just to end perhaps on a more hopeful and positive note this year, we have actually had a colder than usual winter in the UK and it has meant that although the lady birds are perhaps a little bit slower to emerge and get going due to all the cold and wet weather, you're now getting a huge number of larvae and puppy appearing all at the same time and something I really am happy about. I've been really happy to see that a lady bird that's been declining.
A lot of it's due to pesticides or habitat destruction and also the arrival of the Harlequin ladybird and that lady bird is of course the two spot. The two spot really seems to be making a little bit of a comeback in my area.
In the last few weeks I've seen about 15 including a pupa I found on stinging nettles in my local park which hatched a few days ago and I was so happy because I put it on the rose bush in my garden and I last saw it yesterday and it was just eating and aphids what happily there. I've also seen lesser seen species such as my first I'd ladybird larvae and several 10 spots and cream spots. So despite the dismal weather over here, it does actually seem to have been a good year for lady bird so far.
And if you've been out for a walk in the countryside or anywhere that's kind of like a green space, you might have seen the enormous number of seven spots larvae pupae and adults pretty much everywhere you go in the countryside right now. And if you want to know more about what I've just mentioned, like the to spot in the cream spot and 10 spot on that. I will be doing these species in upcoming episodes. So I really, really hope you've enjoyed this episode. Part two will be out in two days.
It's an interview with CJ Roma who lived through the events at the time and got some great stories to tell about it. I actually recorded it in april and I'm really looking forward to finally releasing it. And I'd also like to thank CJ for all the help he gave me with this episode, especially his recollections at the time, and descriptions of how the media covered the events.
If you like the show and want to support me, you can buy me a coffee at Kofi www dot co dash fi dot com slash H W A B podcast and subscribe on your podcast app, Apple podcast, Spotify, google podcasts, garner or wherever you get your podcasts, you can like my facebook page, Hidden Wings and Bloodlust. Follow me on twitter at H W A B podcast or on instagram at 365 dot Ladybird and if you've enjoyed the show, you can share it with someone you know, who would enjoy it or leave me a review.
All the sources in this episode are listed in the show notes. Music is by Deborah Torrents. Thanks for listening and goodbye for now.