You play a big part in my eco education – thanks

A COUPLE of weeks ago in this column I warned of the dangers of an invasion of harlequin ladybirds and speculated it was probably only a matter of time before it happened.

I then got an email from a very helpful lady who runs the National Invasive Species Database at the Biodiversity Centre on the WIT campus in Waterford. She said there was a second Irish sighting last September and, after it was verified by experts, an Invasive Species Alert was posted.

The first recorded sighting in 2007 was in a head of celery imported into a Tesco supermarket in Co Antrim and, because it was an import, and the ladybird was killed, it didn’t trigger an alert. The second occurred in 2009, when one was found in a kitchen on the Ards Peninsula in Co Down and because this one could have flown in from the wild it triggered the alert. The species is rampant in Britain at present and the north-east of Ireland offers the shortest sea crossing for an invasive winged insect.