I've heard stories about a Ladybird Swarm at New Brighton a few decades ago.
Just wondered if anyone had any information, pictures or stories/memories of their own?
Never heard anything sorry joe.
I remember the lady bird swarm well.If my memory serves me right it was just before lunch and the whole sky went black and next thing you know everything was crawling with black and red bugs.
I remember running in to the house screaming.I also remember that they had to shut New Brighton baths for a couple of days to clean the pool due to the lady birds.
Also either that year or the next we suffered a flying ant storm as well but iT was nowhere near the scale of the ladybirds
I remember it quite well. I was a teenager at the time. There were photos of people shovelling up ladybirds on the prom at New Brighton.
If you go into The Magazine pub (Magazine Lane), there are cartoons on the wall depicting it.
I remember it.It was around 76 but can't be certain,they were knee deep on Hoylake prom by the old baths and had to be shoveled away.They clogged up car radiators and even brakes had to be blown out with airlines.
WOW
I know this thread started a couple of weeks ago but I've only just found it.
I went to a shop on King St Wallasey and there was a block of ice cream melting on the floor outside. Someone had dropped it. by the time I came out (couple of mins) it was a heaving black mound of lady birds. I ran home with my hand over my mouth because there were so many I thought I was going to swallow them. I remember my mum picking them out of my hair. Two kids on bikes were riding round in circles holding tabletennis bats out, swating ladybirds. They had ladybirds all over the bats and up their arms. The cars on Harrison Drive had to pull over because there was no way you could see out of the windscreen to drive!
wow, thanks for that.
Shame there are no pictures
It just reminds me of those killer bee Movies...
Would have been amazing to see.
Maybe a one for looking up in the archives?
There was actual video footage of the walls covered in a red mass on one of the videos posted on this forum a while ago. Someone had posted a series of photos of nostalgic wirral and on one of those videos was a fews seconds of films showing the road looking like it was painted red as well as the sea walls. The video must be a good few pages back now I think.
Ive just looked at The Tower Tribute - Not on there.
A Remminisance - Not on there either.
The ladybirds are HERE
https://www.wikiwirral.co.uk/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=169019#Post169019In part 4 about 60% of the way though
I remember the event well. My daughters thought it was great fun
Snod
Oh aye, nice find
told ya so!
Yep I just noticed heh! Some good footage on there
Great spot
6min 30sec you will see the run up to the Swarm.
Part 4 Click Me
Description: Its a Image from the Video, Dont click play..
^ I clicked on it, and it didn't work!
It was before my time, but 1976 was the hottest summer on record (as opposed to this year - the wettest, coldest, winteryest, sh*ttest summer on record).
Remember it well , the school gates were caked in them , we used to crush them i still remember the smell know , they smelt like garden peas
mad hey, got a crackin tan that year . Bikinis everywhere
Cheers sludge,
adds a new dimension to the swarm, however i never in a million
years would have thought that they smelled of peas lol.
I sh-t you not , "Garden Peas" they were everywhere . love the vids of wirral , i remember oakenelden gardens getting blown up my dad took us down to watch it , ill send the link to my old fella , he was a bus driver in the late 60,70,s hell remember how Birkenhead used to look, he will love to watch those vids
my nan has just been telling me, she said that she remembers this well, she used to wirk on outside market it was either wed fri or sat..sheworked on fabric stall (abakahns) and the rolls of materical were coverd
I remember it well. I was 7, my Mum was pregnant with my brother. We were walking home from school (yes, we walked to and from school in those days) the walls were covered in them! I dread to think how many we killed walking home, but we had no choice as they were on the walls, pavements and roads.
remember it well, was over at harrison drive with a few mates .
We used to jump off the sea wall,into the river but that year it was moving!!!
with billions of ladybirds
I well remember the ladybirds, we had a sports day at school and i had to keep brushing them off my arms and legs ect, it's one of those things i had totaly forgoten about !.
i also remember them from a school sports day from devonshire park primary, we were in a field at the bottom of woodchurch lane and we were choking on them while doing a three legged race.got called off in the end.
I can remember these we lived in New Ferry then and had a tin bath that we filled with water to drown them in.We also bottled them too ! Mind you i was only 7.
This is the picture from the Birkenhead News in July 1976 of a hammer outlined under the mass of seething insects:
The report accompanying the picture says
"Freak swarms of ladybirds caused alarm in Birkenhead this week. The ladybirds, which are normally regarded as an atractive insect and the gardeners friend, took on a new menacing identity as they swarmed, locust fashion, over the town in a thick, moving mass of red"
I remember this very well i was nearly 4 at the time my fave toy at the time was a lady bug car i could sit in so it seemed pretty cool with all these ladybirds.
As i was young i thought this was normal for a summer
It was insane. I was 6 at the time and lived in Leasowe but can still remember them in my paddling pool. Thousands of them. I also recall a daddy long legs swarm in the same year. One evening our kitchen ceiling was covered in them. Biblical plagues are not what they used to be. :o)
I was in Parkgate at the time so they must have infested the whole of the Wirral!
I was in Parkgate at the time so they must have infested the whole of the Wirral!
It wasn't just the Wirral, it was most of England, see
HERE last paragraph.
Imagine that, tonnes of dead ladybirds everywhere, eewww! Poor sods!
We had ladybird stew and ladybirds on toast for weeks.
Yep, I remember those ladybirds! They were millions of them all over the walls on the prom, you couldnt even open your mouth without one going in.......
I was 11 at the time and me and my Mum were sitting in the car agog.
me and my Mum were sitting in the car agog.[/quote]
Hope the windows were shut!
I remember being in New Brighton baths at the time and the water was just a carpet of Ladybirds. Here's a picture of a few of them on the prom.
They were over in Lincolnshire as well, a bit crunchy walking around.
What caused it? Most bizarre.
Probably the heat and breeding conditions were right, i was on nights at Lairds at the time and remember having to shovel them off the job, they were all banked up against the bulwark on the ship. Bulwark is an extended ships side.
Whoah! I cant remember it myself- i was 4- going to ask me mum where we were etc. However, i can remember the heatwave-same year?
oh i remember that, everywere turned red, i was pregnant with my son that year, it was so hot too!!
i remember it cos i was in heswall childrens hospital for 7 weeks on traction....the little buggers were everywhere in the wards
anyone remember the boat they had in the grounds for the kids to play on ?
That was a really dry summer - the first summer I was overseas, so I missed the whole swarm phenomenon completely. Am VERY glad I did - my parents lived in Wallasey at the time, and said it was virtually impossible to move around without squashing some of the little beasts. That would have squicked me out completely. That year for the Wirral Show, the Wallasey Ladybirds charity group dressed up as - yes, you've guessed it, ladybirds...
i remember being down new brighton and they had people with buckets and shovels to shovel them up!
I remember being in the back of my dad's car with my brother. I was 9 I think, and they were flying in through the windows...And dad shouting close the "b****y" windows quick...hehe. That was on the way to Moreton, we turned rround and went to West Kirby instead. There wasn't that many there. I just saw loads of people running up from the beach with their towels screaming....Sounds funny now, but it was scary!!
What caused it? Most bizarre.
Caused by a glut of greenfly aphids the previous year (the cheif food item for ladybirds, bless 'em), the ladybird breeding pattern changed due to that glut - such that next year - 76 - their were far more ladybirds as there was expected to be far more aphids - but in the event there wasn't..
I remember Derby Pool covered in them.
After a while they got pretty cranky with little or no food and were known to bite - which they do not do normally...