Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Feel free to ignore this post



This is the year of the giant grasshoppers. We've seen these before, and we've been told that they come every other year. However, I blogged about them the last time we saw them, and that was in 2008, so I know it was three years ago, not two. My kids asked me to blog about them again, so that we have a record of their visit we can refer to, the next time they show up.

The grasshoppers are almost gone now, so I took the new camera out and worked on learning to take some close up shots, before they all disappeared. It was windy, so the tree branches kept swaying, making a clear picture difficult to come by. If you're not into grasshoppers, please feel free to ignore this post.

3 comments:

Beth said...

When you say "giant" just how big are these things?
We have locusts in N Florida that are bright yellow and red and black; quite pretty for an insect. The largest ones are about 4 to 5 inches long. They eat anything green so most folks squish them to save their bushes and gardens.

Trish said...

The largest I saw this year were about 4". It might have been a bad year for them, as I'm pretty certain I saw larger ones the last time they came. I'm not complaining, though LOL.

The dogs, turkeys, and turtles loved eating them. The large ones seemed to mostly just eat the leaves out of our scrubby oak trees, so they didn't bother us too much. We also had smaller ones (possibly the same ones at a younger stage - I don't know for sure), and those did a number on the vegetable garden!

Beth said...

Thanks for the update! I don't think anything eats the locusts we have here. The young ones are all black with a red stripe down their back. They are small about an inch in length. They don't eat at all at this stage but when they turn into the red/yellow/black adults they eat everything green. Makes me think of the biblical locusts!