Thanks to Phil Smith for these fine shots of Slender Ground-hopper taken on the Sefton coast recently.
A new grasshopper/cricket to look for, and by the sounds of things, an especially sneaky one - superb!!!
Phil explains: "I finally managed to get some half decent shots of Slender Ground-hopper. As well as the original Birkdale locality, I have also found it at three sites around Cabin Hill so it may be quite widespread in the dune system.
"Look for it in short rabbit-grazed vegetation around the edges of slacks and scrapes. However, numbers are low and it is only 10-12mm long, so it takes some finding.
"There is considerable colour variation".
I do like crickets - if you don't see the attraction, nip over to Spurn sometime in late summer and watch the Roesel's having a party on Beacon Lane.
Not much time to go looking for 'em bugs at the moment tho' - spending most of my time cleaning up litter and trying to put out fires started by morons.
Yesterday's blaze at the southern end of the Ainsdale frontals was a nightmare - 400 metres of dune vegetation consumed by a fierce wall of fire fanned by a strong easterly.
We seem happy to live in a society where it's easier to destroy than create, so I shouldn't be too surprised whenever the smoke starts rising from the dunes.
Lotsa Swallows moving today, with a Whimbrel heading north too.
Anyone seeing anything???
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies...
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I saw lots of Swallows coming in off the sea at Crosby today and 6 Swifts over the Marina. Yesterday I watched a singing Garden Warbler at Pickering's Pasture and last night, by torchlight, a fully grown Old Lady Moth caterpillar munching the fresh young leaves on the Ivy just outside my kitchen door.
I had a walk around Birkdale Green beach/Taggs area tonight, nothing unusual, a small movement of Swallows, a Wheatear, couple of fly-over 'alba' Wagtails and the all regulars, when on the way back along the inner edge of the marsh by the frontal dunes, whilst texting and therefore not paying full attention I flushed something a few yards ahead from the edge of the path by the marsh. My initial instincts where partridge but it was far too small, I didn't get my bins on it before I disapeared over the dunes. I pursued it but had no idea where it had gone nor whether it had gone down. My only conclusion from the brief views I got was possible Quail, but it seems a very odd place for Quail and also a touch early...a mystery I'll never know for sure.
Curlew Sandpiper and Little Stint showing well with about 20 Dunlin last evening from Nel's.
1 Tree Pipit, Birkdale hills this morning.
Pager report of Alpine Swift over RAF Woodvale at 12.30pm today.
Wood Warbler in Birkdale NR this morning, in Poplar Wood on main track.
Cracking Lime Hawk Moth in my kitchen tonight . I put it outside amongst some ivy
Can I ask if garden birds like Blackbird and Starling will hunt these very interesting insects?
JD: Garden birds are unlikely to come across 'em Luke, but grasshoppers and crickets are prey for a number of duneland birds.