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Cloudy and windy with periods of rain in the afternoon. Near record high temperatures. High 77F. Winds SSW at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch..

Rain showers early with clearing later at night. Low 62F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%.

The bugs of winter are led by the brown marmorated stinkbug (left) and the Asian multicolored lady beetle, or ladybug.

The bugs of winter are led by the brown marmorated stinkbug (left) and the Asian multicolored lady beetle, or ladybug.

Looking out the kitchen window, my vision was locked on a woodpecker scooting up and down one of the trees in the backyard.

Something suddenly moved in front of my view, but much closer. As I focused, it scurried along the inside of the window, defying the laws of gravity like most insects do a stinkbug.

Not one, but two of them, were attracted to the light of the window, and trying to find a way out. They didn’t make it, but by the time I had dispatched them, the woodpecker was gone.

Stinkbugs were not always so common in my home. In fact, I don’t remember seeing one even a few years ago, which makes sense, because they were first accidentally introduced into eastern Pennsylvania in the mid-1990s and have been making their way west and south ever since.

Now they are rampant, and over the past two years, have become a common annoyance during the winter. They get in through all those places that our homes lose heat. Then when it warms up, they accumulate near windows and light fixtures, because to a stinkbug, light means escape, even if in a human dwelling, it sometimes just means light.

Brown-marmorated stinkbugs are an invasive pest species from Asia that has now spread throughout much of North America and can negatively affect crops like apples, tomatoes and soybeans. Their name comes from the scent glands that they use as an anti-predator defense.

Adults are brown, shield-shaped, and about 2/3 of an inch long. You can distinguish them from native stinkbugs based on the lighter bands they have on their antennae and dark markings on the thin, overlapping part of their wings.

Another bug that stinks in the winter is the ladybug, but it’s not a bug at all. Stinkbugs are true bugs, while ladybugs are actually beetles. You can tell the difference between beetles and bugs by their wings. In bugs, the wings overlap, while beetles have one straight line down their back that separates their wings.

The official name of ladybugs is “multicolored Asian lady beetle.” This Asian species, however, was originally released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a biological control agent, because they are important predators of aphids and other crop pests.

First released in 1978, the introduced populations died out each winter until the mid-1990s, and have been growing ever since. Like stinkbugs, they have now spread throughout North America.

Ladybugs are slightly larger than our native lady beetles, which tend not to congregate in homes. Their oval bodies are yellow to red in color, often with abundant black spots on their wing covers.

Ladybugs congregate in much larger numbers than stinkbugs, and become a nuisance when they come out in hordes during the spring or on a sunny winter day. They are particularly attracted to sunlight reflecting off of south-facing windows, which mimic their natural behavior of overwintering on south-facing cliffs.

Unlike stinkbugs, ladybugs are not agricultural pests, and are important predators of actual pests, which is why they were released in the first place. However, they are a nuisance in homes, can occasionally bite and also emit a foul-smelling defensive chemical that can cause spotting on walls.

The best way to keep these insects out of your house is to seal any cracks you may have around windows or doors. This is easy for the obvious holes, but it can be difficult to find them all, particularly in older homes.

Thus, many of us learn to live with these pests and move them outside (or kill them). You can vacuum them, but both species will emit defensive chemicals that will concentrate and get into the air if you are sucking up a large number. If you do vacuum, be sure to empty the bag, as they will just crawl out after you are finished.

For ladybugs, opening a sunny window on a warm spring day where they are congregating will allow them to escape.

These insects are invasive, meaning they are species that can spread quickly and cause ecological or economic harm. Although stinkbugs are an agricultural pest, ladybug infestations cause harm to our homes and interrupt our lifestyles. In this way, these species are not unlike other invasives.

Some of these species, like stinkbugs, Asian carp, and zebra mussels, are accidental introductions, brought on by globalization. Other species, like ladybugs, kudzu and European starlings were purposeful releases. Combined, invasives have caused irreparable ecological damage and at least $21 billion a year in economic costs to the United States.

It turns out that the best way to fight invasive species is to make sure they don’t get established in the first place. To this end, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has inspectors at all of our borders and ports that try to catch invasives, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has become more careful about using biological controls.

But we can all participate, by killing invasive plants on our property, by washing off our boats and boots when we move between lakes and rivers, and even by making life harder for stinkbugs.

The bugs of winter are different than many other invasives in that they affect average people on a daily basis, particularly during the winter months, and are a constant, irritating reminder that these and other invasive species are in our homes, our agricultural fields, our waterways and flying through the air because of human mistakes.

Stinkbugs and ladybugs remind us that we can do better, and act smarter, as a nation and as people, so we don’t have even worse species invading our country, as well as our homes. In that sense, maybe their presence, as irritating as it is, will inspire us to be better stewards of our planet.

HOWARD WHITEMAN, who lives northwest of Paris, is a professor of wildlife and conservation biology in Murray State University’s Department of Biological Sciences and is director of its Watershed Studies Institute. His email address is hwhiteman@murraystate.edu.

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