29th Sep 2014 - Aahh, Gwasshoppaahh...

Had a day off and figured it was high time I plugged a gap in my Orthoptera list, one that I only realised was there a few weeks earlier. Tony Davis and Graeme Lyons had mentioned that neither of them had seen Heath Grasshopper before. I quickly poured scorn and mockery in their low-listing direction before realising that I hadn't seen one either. Oops, humble pie much? So I did a quick bit of internet trawling and discovered that Alder Hills NR in the middle of Poole had Heath Grasshoppers as one of its flagship species. How difficult could this be...?

Within an hour or so I was parked up on the edge of a busy industrial estate and heading towards mayhem at the bottom of a busy service road. Erm? Thankfully, just behind a reversing lorry, I spied a gate with the sign Alder Hills NR behind it. Unbelievable, but this must be it? I stepped through and entered a different world.

Reading the blurb on the sign I quickly learnt more of what the internet had already told me. This tiny (13 acres!) site is all that is left in this vicinity of what was once a huge swathe of heathland stretching from Dorchester all the way out to Christchurch. Effectively trapped in this tiny fragment of an oasis were Sand Lizards, Smooth Snakes, Dartford Warblers, Bristle Bent Grass and Heath Grasshoppers! Stunning stuff indeed. It was saved from development by the local people who bought it outright, presumably more for dog-walking than for wildlife conservation. Either which way, it has been saved and quite rightly so. I walked up the slope with Western Gorse (Ulex gallii) all around and started checking the grasshoppers I found.

First up were lots of Field Grasshopper (Chorthippus brunneus), which is the main confusion species with the far rarer Heath Grasshopper. Meadow Grasshopper (Chorthippus parallelus) was next, but not very many of them. Maybe it's a bit too dry up here? I found a few webs of the Gorse Spider Mites (Tetranychus lintearius) which seem to be doing very well indeed this year.

Suddenly, no doubt about it, there was a Heath Grasshopper (Chorthippus vagans) right there on the sandy track in front of my feet!!! Wow, how cool was that? Looking absolutely nothing like a Field Grasshopper at all (confusion species my a**e), it was all big head, bulgy eyes and stumpy body. A completely different shape altogether. Wow, that was easy! Obviously I needed to examine it a bit more closely, just to check off the confirmatory features. I quickly swiped it with my net and gently coaxed it into a tube. The important features to be aware of were all carefully looked for and confirmed. Brilliant!

Firstly, the pronotum markings differ from Field Grasshopper in that the black marking actually reaches the rear edge of the pronotum rather than stopping just short of it. Yep. The sulcus is situated pretty much in the middle of the pronotum. Yep. The antennae should be straight and thin, not clubbed or thickened (male and female respectively) as exhibited in the smaller, but still rather similar, Mottled Grasshopper. Yep. The wingtips should end more or less in line with the knee of the hindleg, not beyond it as in Field Grasshopper. Yep. Hind tibia should be yellow or red on a yellowish brown base colour. Yep. Well, everything fitted quite perfectly, so I took a few pics and let the little fella continue on his merry way. Superb! Here's a pic of the pronotum showing the necessary features.

It's a bit squiffy thanks to the state of my tube, but you can see that the black wedge and pale lines along the sides of the pronotum clearly (and broadly) touch the rear edge, and the sulcus (the lower horizontal line running horizontally across the pronotum) is situated roughly midway between top and bottom of the pronotal shield. Also note that the antennae are of an equal thickness throughout their entire length.

A quick look around revealed about another 3 or 4 individuals along a short stretch of the top perimeter path. I doubled back and descended the wide, sandy pathway that led through the middle of the reserve and down to the lake at that bottom. Three quarters of the way down this path I came across a colony of Heath Grasshoppers, I reckon about ten of them in an area maybe 30ft by 20ft. They seemed to show preference to a wide sandy bowl, keeping close to the sparsely grassed edges. Here's a pic of one I managed to slowly creep up to. Just brilliant wee things!

Note the wing length vs hind knee position and hind tibia colouring and patterning.

I don't suppose I was on site for any more than about an hour, it's a tiny place. I had a very quick peek around but couldn't see any reptiles, not even a Common Lizard. Still, can't complain! Nice one, an easy addition to my orthoptera list. Just a few toughies to go now...Cepero's Groundhopper, Field Cricket, Lesser Mottled Gropper, Wartbiter, Mole-cricket, a few migrant coneheads and locusts, some sticks... oh, and any earwig other than Common!

I quickly popped down to Boscombe in search of Western Green Lizards on the zigzag path, no luck though. I counted 23 Wall Lizards (Podarcis muralis) and was pleased to see a great display of Seaside Daisy (Erigeron glaucus), Sweet Alison (Lobularia maritima) and a few Brassica Bugs (Eurydema oleracea) along with Tree Lupin (Lupinus arboreus) which isn't a plant I see very often at all.

The lovely Seaside Daisy, its native range is the western seaboard of America ranging from Oregon down to California. Which is bizarrely similar to the Tree Lupin's native range - and also found growing at this site.

Wall Lizard - very common and difficult to miss on the walls of the zigzags! There is general consensus that Common Lizards and, to an unknown extent, Sand Lizards have been displaced by Wall Lizards at this site.