I haven't been going outside much to take photos because of the weather. Every time there is a break in the rain, I go outside and have a look around the yard to see if there is anything new to record. There hasn't been much out there lately, that I can see anyway. Not sure if it is connected to the weather or the change of season. Things seemed to have slowed down when summer ended.
I still see a few grasshoppers but they have reduced significantly in volume. There is a big one out the front with one back leg that likes the gardenia tree at the front door and one out the back I call spotty because it is covered in black spots. Sometimes I think they wonder where I have been because I've seen them near windows and doors eventually when I haven't gone outside much.
Grasshoppers are one of my big phobias, it has improved slightly since I started photographing them but I still cannot deal when they fly jump. Spotty flew past my head yesterday and it made me scream ha. It landed on my laundry that I was hanging on the line, I haven't uploaded a photo of Spotty, so I cannot attach the ones I took when it was sitting on top of the clothesline.
Some insects, especially the grasshoppers seem okay with me taking photos of them close up, I only have a camera on my phone so I often have to get right up in their face, which ends up being difficult because they get afraid or something but if they are ones I see everyday on a regular basis they seem to recognise or remember and don't fly off like the new ones. I don't know if it is possible for grasshoppers to remember people since I don't know how they see but they definitely seem less afraid the more they see me.
Unfortunately today I found a dead grasshopper on the wet cement, it didn't have any visible wounds that I could see, so I am not sure if it just died naturally and fell out of the tree or if it was poisoned by something. It did look like it had been eating shortly before it died. I picked it up and put it in the garden.
Also the other day after some heavy wind and rain I found these caterpillars all over the yard. I know they are sawfly caterpillars and there are a lot in the two big trees out the back, I know people consider them pests because of the plant destruction but even though we constantly have the trees filled with bundles of these caterpillars (I tagged a photo I believe) the trees seem to be doing fine. I spent most of my day going around the yard picking them up and putting them back into the tree, I was afraid to touch them at first since I have never even held a caterpillar but when I got used to them it was fine. I left the bigger bundles just incase they were going somewhere to transform but picked up all the smaller ones that were stranded on their own or moving into places that they would die in like the shed.
They are still in the tree happily eating and resting and I managed to see one shedding its skin which I recorded on video which answered my own question of why one had a white head.
I now understand that fresh moults have white or greenish heads. I also notice other things about sawflies. The female seems to lay its eggs inside a leaf and will not leave and just stays there hanging off the leaf stem until it dies. I can still see all the dead sawflies that laid the fresh eggs in the trees still.
I haven't seen any fully formed saw flies in a few weeks now so I am wondering if the season for breeding has passed.
That is about all for the last few days, I had no idea there was a journal option here until I decided to check the web page, so I might keep regular updates on what I see from now on.
