Despite the damp day, 22 of us including 12 children aged four to 13 turned up to study grasshoppers and crickets at a joint Watch Club and SNS meeting aimed at children in Milden Hall near Lavenham on 28th September. The Milden Hall Farm Watch group for children is a really active club with nearly 80 or so children who turn up for snail racing, clues from poos, fungus forays, moth mornings, summer camps and other activities where we try to study wildlife close up in an accessible way for children whose ages range from four to fourteen!

The thing with children is that you can’t bang on for two hours about identification features of different species of grasshoppers and bush crickets and expect them to remember so you have to make it easy to remember by doing something memorable! Whilst the drizzled-on grass, nettles and meadow dried out, we stayed inside and discussed the key differences, courtship behaviour and stridulations of these jumping creatures. And then, to make the information stick, we got into groups and had 10 minutes to produce some silly poems ….

Then, using a simple beginners’ key, we ventured out into the damp day and, rather surprisingly, found six Orthoptera species - the meadow grasshopper (pictured mating below), common green grasshopper, dark bush cricket, Roesel’s bush cricket, short-winged conehead and long-winged conehead. And all the easier to identify after making up silly rhymes and limericks.

Some bush crickets by Sudbury Watch Group guests “Pssst Psst Psst!” Dark bush cricket Jumping around Big dark legs But quiet little sound Chirp chirp chirp Speckled bush cricket Listening for a mate Stridulating males Waiting for a date

The stridulating meadow grasshopper by the Pertwee & Hawkins girls I’m a handsome meadow grasshopper And as I stridulate Living in long grass I try to find a mate. My short wings help me hop (Alas, I cannot fly), My antennae help me feel I blend in with the grass So birds don’t know I’m real When I’ve found a mate She lays her eggs right in the ground And then I really celebrate With my clicky sound My habitat’s in grass I love to hop, hop, hop When the lights go down I like to stop, stop, stop