Hairy

The weather forecast for today was horrible, but apart from a sharp shower in the middle of the morning it was actually quite a pleasant day. Failing to take advantage of this unexpected gift, I spent most of the day meandering around and not achieving very much: R and I are still suffering lingering after-effects from the last virus we caught from the Boy Wonder, and I was simply too tired to get myself together and go out to a nature reserve.

Towards the end of the afternoon though, having spotted a Meadow Grasshopper in the garden, I began to wonder how things were going down at Tilly's Field, which last month was positively pinging with grasshopper nymphs. So I wandered down the lane, and discovered that it's still alive with nymphs, but also now a good number of adults. I was particularly hoping to find a Roesel's Bush-cricket, because I hadn't seen one yet this year and I've found some beautifully marked specimens in this meadow in the past, but sadly there were none to be seen today, and my duck remains unbroken. I did find numerous Meadow and Field Grasshoppers though, along with a handful of Lesser Marsh Grasshoppers. Most of them were uncooperative (as I would be myself, if I was as low down the food chain as they are), but this handsome Field Grasshopper carried on sunning himself and ignored me, allowing me to get him properly in focus from stem to stern. I wish the background was less messy - but truly, you can't have everything.

Field grasshoppers are very variable insects in terms of size, colour and pattern, but they can be identified by sharply incurving pronotal side keels (not especially obvious here because the pronotum is all one colour, whereas it's often patterned in contrasting colours), and a spectacularly hairy under side. They mainly feed on grasses, and can be found in any open, grassy area, including gardens. Females lay their eggs directly into the soil, where they overwinter in diapause before hatching in the spring. Nymphs can appear as early as late March, and adults from June onwards, persisting through to late autumn in a mild year.

Before I go, I must say thank you to everyone who was so nice about yesterday's leafhopper - I'm delighted that you liked her. I've now put a few more photos from my Trench Wood trip on my Facebook page, if you'd like to see them.

And finally, I'm skipping with excitement (well, almost) to be able to tell you that my record of the Five-ribbed Lacehopper (Reptalus quinquecostatus) has been checked and accepted by the Auchenorrhyncha people. Common sense tells me that this little bug didn't just turn up in my garden from nowhere, and that it's probably dramatically under-reported rather than genuinely rare, but still... looking at the iRecord distribution map makes me go "Wow!" From 2018 until now there have only been twelve accepted records: six from Sussex, two from Essex, one from Kent, one from Berkshire, one from south Gloucestershire, and now mine, which is the furthest north by some distance. I love citizen science, and the feeling you very, very occasionally get that you're adding something to the sum of human knowledge.