Happy Snappy Ecologist: Crickets and Grasshoppers

My daughter is my chief Orthoptera (crickets and grasshoppers) finder. She seems to have a great knack for harmlessly catching them by hand and once caught they become quite 'tame' and will sit on her hand/foot/arm/head for ages as she wanders around loving them or looking for more.

This first one she caught for me and placed on some bracken so I could photograph it for @papa-peppers combination photography contest (https://steemit.com/contest/@papa-pepper/combination-photography-contest-from-papa-pepper-week-5 ). We're pretty sure it's a bog bush cricket but I'm new to Orthoptera identification so I'm not 100%.

Probably bog bush cricket Metrioptera brachyptera
This picture of the same cricket (during taming 😊) nicely shows the long, curved ovipositor that shows us this is a female. Probably bog bush cricket Metrioptera brachyptera

Next up a long-winged conehead. I think you can probably see why it got its name!

Long-winged conehead Conocephalus discolor

This is the first cricket I ever remember her catching and I've just scrolled through a lot of photos back to 2007 to find it! Little did we know it would spark such an ongoing interest. It is a speckled bush cricket and if you look closely you can see that it is indeed covered in black speckles. Love the mega-long antennae of this species.

Speckled bush cricket Leptophyes punctatissima

The long antennae are the quickest way to tell whether you're looking at a cricket or a grasshopper. Cricket antennae are long - typically longer than the body, whereas grasshopper antennae are short. This next picture is a grasshopper - I think common green but again not 100% on this (that's another field guide added to my mental wish list!). Definitely a grasshopper though - just look at those short antennae!

Best ID guess - Common green grasshopper Omocestus viridulus

Early in the season it is also a treat to find grasshopper nymphs. Tiny grasshoppers - very cute. I think trying to identify this would be pushing the boat out for me from a photo but very possibly meadow or maybe even lesser marsh grasshopper.

Grasshopper nymph

With thanks to my lovely, insect catching daughter!

Happy Snappy Ecologist: Rambling through nature makes me very Happy and I can't resist getting Snappy with my hand-held Panasonic Lumix FZ45 with clip on Raynox 150 macro lens (though the 2007 photo above with Canon Ixus 860). This helps me share my love of Ecology with others and reminds me to identify and find out more about different species when I get home. Enjoy!