Ladybird Bonanza

I popped in and had a look at the wild bird food mixtures that we planted in April to see how they were progressing and what a surprise I had.

Many of the plants that were growing, this is fat hen, (actually a weed), but good feed value never-the-less are hosting the largest populations of mealy cabbage aphids I have seen in a long time.

Feeding on these aphids are many hundreds of ladybirds. Here is a ladybird in it's larvae stage fattening up on the aphids.

This shot is showing three adult ladybirds feeding on some black bean aphids on a Quinoa plant. There was also more hoverflies and other beneficials than I could count.

Many of the plants have seeded well and should provide the most fantastic source of seeds during the coming winter months.

In the fore ground of this picture is some fodder radish that has some very large seed pods that will hold their seed well into the winter providing a much later seed source.