While searching our blackfly infested Broad Beans for Ladybirds and larvae we found this amorous couple. 
Still photography doesn't do justice to the effort the little guy with the red spots was putting into his coupling activity - all his waggling and thrusting seemed wasted on the lady though, as she munched her way through an extended family of blackfly. She was presumably building her reserves up for the egg laying that will follow the liason.
You will have noticed the strikingly different appearance of the two ladybirds. These are Harlequin ladybirds and they occur in a variety of different colours and patterns. It was a recently as 2004 that the Harlequins turned up in the UK, they have spread rapidly across most of England. It is feared that the voracious nature of this introduced species may cause our natural population of ladybirds to crash. Harlequins eat the food that our natives need and worst of all they alledgedly eat other ladybirds!
We decided to leave these guys to get on with it - we have Blackfly for all!
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