Where have all the grasshoppers gone?

[Dekzion]

For the last couple of years at least it has struck me that I haven't heard any grasshoppers!
When I was a kid there was zillions in the summer and used to love trying to catch them, but now,,I heard and saw one a couple of months ago,,.
Am I living in the wrong area or just going deaf?

[rustylady]

Plenty of them round here this summer.

[Glutton4...]

Loads round here too! Don't forget, you're taller now too!

[zazen999]

I have one that follows me round the lottie when it's a nice day....

[weekendwellies]

lots on my lottie but none in the garden

[Jeanied]

There is one on my bedroom ceiling - no idea how it got there!

[Two_Sheds]

They need LONG grass.

Plenty on my neighbour's plot

[Jardiniere]

trillions here ..grasshoppers and cicadas......and the occasional praying mantis type thingy

[rana]

Two Sheds is right. They prosper in areas of unmown mixed grasses allowed to grow long and flower. Such traditionally managed hay meadows have been disappearing fast over the last half century. Fortunately there are many unkempt gardens which provide a suitable habitat for grasshoppers so they are still around in good numbers

[Dekzion]

Or going deaf!! Right! Thats It! Going for a wander to find some long grass,,might find some mushrooms, you never know!

[womble]

Bob Flowerdew once wrote that when he took over his new house, his garden was kept very tidy and in maximum food production mode, he then realised that he never heard any crickets. So he started leaving areas a bit unkempt and they came back.

We get them here in wild field margins and in the long grass and nettles I let grow at the back of the garden, I have a small wildlife area as well, which has very long grass/brambles and a tiny pond and the nights here are rich with sounds from them. My neighbours on the other hand, have a perfect manicured lawn and have to listen to MY crickets over the fence

[weekendwellies]

This thread made me wonder what use grasshoppers are to the gardener, so I googled it. Apparently they prefer to eat grasses, leaves and cereal crops so, although the sound of grasshoppers chirruping away is lovely and makes me reminisce, unless you have enough space to leave as a wild area then do they really have a place in the crop-growing or flower garden?

[quark1]

Strange you should say this - but I have had quite the opposite experience this year in my garden - having caught site and sound of both the brown ones and the bright green ones with the huge antennae and spur thingy on their backsides!

[Polly Fouracre]

I saw a grasshopper yesterday and, yes my grass is longish. I too thought that there were fewer around than when I was a child but, then I am a few feet taller, a lot busier and don't sit and dream in long grass as I did when I was eight or so. Also, my hearing was better twenty odd years ago. They seemed to "saw" all day long then.

[Dekzion]

couldn't find any

Okay,, Now for the update.
I've been up here, (see pic)
Better call out the National Guard because something has happened to the Grasshoppers in the Pewsey Vale!
I stopped and sat down every five minutes like I had worms! (yes dog lovers you know what I mean) but could hear nothing like a grasshopper.
I heard Owls in a nearby wood, Foxes yapping in the other direction, all manner of birds big and small all around and even what I thought might be a skylark giving it some. The hare in the next field was watching me intently as I watched a few landing and take offs by a powered hang glider a mile or so over on a private field, and I watched the Sun slowly creap away from the Valley turning the fields from autumn red to fade out a sort of see through pink! But No Grasshoppers!

do it again though!