At the end of June I witnessed a commotion outside my window—droves of orange specks flying in the air. Not one, but hundreds. What were they?
For months before, there’d been a lot of exciting activity on my patio. Every spring a family of barn swallows make a nest in a vent above the storage door. I’ve never known why the vent is there, but clearly, the birds have figured it out. Only a few days ago, I’d seen two babies fledge after waiting patiently for their parents to return. The other day, they had taken wing, and for a moment, returned to the nest in what seemed like a joyous celebration of their accomplishment. But these were not swallows.
I stepped outside to get a better look, thinking at first, they were bees swarming to form a new colony. As I watched them sail past my tomato plants and over my condo roof, I realized these were not bees, but ladybugs. With the sudden turn to warm weather, the ladybugs had come out of hiding from cracks and crevices. Like people, the ladybugs were streaming outside, glad to finally feel the heat.
For some reason, children are fond of ladybugs. I remember how my daughter loved the small beetles. I have a picture of her wearing a ladybug t-shirt. Gardeners like them because they eat aphids. There are legends about how ladybugs are linked to fertility and rebirth. And for some, ladybugs foreshadow good luck. I can recall my mother singing a rhyme: Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home; your house is on fire and your children will burn, heralding back to a time when farmers burned their fields after the harvest. It’s considered bad luck to swat a ladybug.
After standing by my window watching the ladybug traffic, I crossed the street to a firetrail along Leona Canyon in Oakland. As a long-time resident of the area, I’d seen this happen before. Five minutes down the trail, there were clouds of ladybugs zooming in every direction. The buckeye trees were in bloom with their white candelabra lighting the way. The ladybugs landed on my arms, in my hair, in my eyes, pausing for a second before spreading their wings and continuing their flight. A raucous crew, it was as if they were heading toward some destination party.
In June 2019, a swarm of traveling ladybugs near San Diego was so big, it had appeared on the National Weather Services’ radar as a “bloom” about 80 miles by 80 miles. This wasn’t quite that, but definitely thousands of beetles, orange jewels flitting past me.
On the same day, I saw a hare, a coral bellied ring-necked snake, and a grasshopper. It seemed like everyone, including me, had been waiting for things to warm up.
The ladybugs continued their flight, alive with an energy driving them forward, a natural calling. I walked back to my house and shouted, “Where are we going? Don’t leave me! Take me with you!” And it seemed that they’d almost heard me, encrusted my arms, legs, and face until I was nothing but an orange ladybug, watching the dog walkers below with their off-leash charges, as I sailed in the sky along with the ladybugs.