Today my friend Rosie (from Los Angeles) and I went and explored the French Riviera. Rosie is over here for ten days which is great and means I can show her some of the places I’ve been raving about both on the website and in my blog. When we got to Eze she realised why I’d run out of words to describe this beautiful region of France: it really is simply more than a bunch of just nice adjectives.

After a BBQ at our place I then took her to St Paul de Vence. This place is truly gorgeous - in fact, it’s so gorgeous that it’s the third most visited place in France with 2.5 million visitors a year. Today we were one of them. It is hard to describe the French Riviera but it really has to be seen to be believed. I’m not sure my blog helps. In fact, I’m not even sure my present website does. Hopefully my new website will do it justice. Seen through eyes different to my own, I find so many facets of this fascinating region that I’d overlooked, missed or simply did not notice. I may need glasses . . .

Mind you, yesterday I didn’t need any glasses. As Nigel and I left our local supermarket our attention was drawn by a young man waving a rather large brown butterfly net around a tree. Now, normally, I am quite a reserved sort of individual and far too embarrassed to ask “Monsieur, what are you doing?”. But yesterday I must have been braver than usual and did ask. He was catching ladybirds - but not any old ladybird; he was after the Harlequin.

It seems that this evil, quite vorous, ladybird is now amongst our midst - tragically from the United Kingdom (hearing this I continued to speak French for fear he might find me the culprit) - and preying on our nice ladybirds that we have all come to love. In fact, it appears that once it runs out of aphids, it then starts eating other invertebrates such as ladybirds, hoverflies, lacewings, butterflies and so on. All very nasty and unpleasant. Naturally I didn’t have my camera with me (I was only going shopping after all) - hence no photo of this dynamic young chap.

It seems that, originally, the Harlequin was introduced from Asia into North America for biological control of aphids on crops. Having swept across the US, it has now reached Europe and currently roams Belgium and France. Recently it has added the French Riviera to its invasion list.

Listening to what he said, I couldn’t help but make a connection. Didn’t Australia do roughly the same thing with Cane toads in 1935 when they introduced them to eat the larvae of the French’s and the Greyback Cane Beetles?

Note 26th February 2008: Since first writing this blog last year a recent news item caught my eye concerning killer ladybirds reported for the first time in Scotland. Click here to read further.