Natural Picker Upper Asian Lady Bug

Asian Lady Bugs have a strong desire to survive our cold winter, so in middle fall they seek small cracks to squeeze into. Sometimes those small cracks are around doors or windows just wide enough for them to contort into. Or maybe they just dissolve into atomic particles and reconstitute on the other side. No matter how tight we've made our house, come spring they start showing up on the inside windowsills. They haven't had anything to eat or drink for months and now they must get outside, but they no longer have enough energy to teleport a second time. The only way out this time is when we open the door and toss them out. And did I mention, don't squish them because stink is their natural defense?


This one was on its last legs, as indicated by wings extending outside its spotted shells. It was speeding across a windowsill at about one cm per minute. When it finally paused to catch its breath, I attacked it with my macro lens and used CameraPixels to shoot 50 focus bracket images. This won't work if the bug moves its legs or body, even by small amounts during the shots, because the overlapping images won't align and merge properly. Then I used Affinity Photo to focus align and merge the images.

It's clear from this bug's Immaculate Collection of lint that it had been crawling unnoticed for some time. They must somehow sense the length of daylight to know when it's time to wake up and head toward the windows, probably in middle March. Windowsills are where most of them end up.