A pretty little thing, the Seven-spotted ladybug. It's not the ladybird people my age grew up with hereabouts: apparently it came to Newfoundland in the 1980s. And it has largely taken over the niche of native species of ladybirds.

This one, feeding on aphids and the like on a lupin, was on a path that cuts across a hill near downtown St. John's this afternoon.

And, yeah, I know it's a ladybug most places. They were all ladybirds to the people I knew as a child. "Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home; Your house is afire, your children will burn."