Have you noticed that each year, some species in nature, seems to reproduce profusely for a year and then are seen only in small numbers the subsequent years? One year I saw a lot of dragonflies in the garden and since then, I see less than 5 during summers. Some year, I had a lot of one type of weed(whose name I dont know) and then I did not see that weed in particularly large numbers.
Well this year, it has been the year of the grasshoppers in my garden. I have seen several grasshoppers and to my surprise I have seen one particular type which not only hops but also flies! and it looks like a butterfly as it makes one giant leap or a hoppity kind of flying as it moves from a flower to the garage door. It has the butterfly look for the few seconds it's in air and as it seems to fly-hop much quicker than a butterfly, I have never been able to capture it on video. By the time I can get the phone out and the camera on to video, it's wings are folded and it's a sitting grasshopper instead of a leaping butterfly!
As I mentioned in an earlier article, this year, on a trip to Awanda conservation area, we saw literally millions of caterpillars creeping and crawling all over trees (thousands!), branches, trunk, leaves, the forest floor, the road and even benches! We could hear them... a crunchy sound caused either by their 'eating' the leaves or 'falling' from trees onto dead leaves. or moving on dead leaves. Just imagine, how many of them are simultaneously active, for me to hear the sound at all and that too, continually! Never ever have I seen caterpillars in such large numbers. And I have been visiting conservation parks, woodlands, meadows, wetlands, etc for years and years.
Another animal which I hardly or never saw in my 14 years here are chipmunks and this year, there are many chipmunks in my garden. Two hypothesis I have for their presence is: I threw out a lot of bird seed in my garden once. I wonder if they somehow smelt it from afar and came for it and then stayed on. The other hypothesis is that I have started growing tomatoes and cucumbers this year (which I never did before) and they came to eat these up. I love these bright, cute things, which remind me of the squirrels in India.
I wonder what I will see next year. I wonder what made the grasshopper population so much this year, at least in my garden.
Discovered now when I googled about 'too many grasshoppers this year' this article
the too many grasshoppers problems seems to have been there in this town in north Ontario too!
apparently since the last winter was mild, too many eggs survived and so many of them were born this year..
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