The nursey rhyme “Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home” may be in your subconscious as people across the region on Tuesday, Nov. 19, reported seeing clusters of the reddish beetles congregating on windows and the south and west walls of buildings everywhere.

They are coming out in platoons, hoping to find a comfortable place to spend the winter, said Duane McKenna, William Hill professor of biology at the University of Memphis.

“The adults hibernate; they’ll come out on warm days — even during the winter — and be active,” McKenna said. “And then, of course, in the spring, they establish a new population, to keep things going.”

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By Wednesday, Nov. 20, some 20 degrees cooler, the creatures were gone, or at least not fanning themselves out across the windows and walls they’d found so appealing the day before.

What they’re looking for now is warmth, and they will go to some lengths to find it, including burrowing into chinks in bricks or other crevices.

And they often find their way indoors, where they may congregate in smaller numbers on windowsills or other bright, warm places, McKenna said.

If they are inside, eradication can be somewhat complex, depending on one’s sensibility, said Chris Cooper, director of the Shelby County Extension office.