Welcome Aid to Discovering Grasshoppers
- Details
- Written by Gus Jones
- Category: Insects
- Published: 18 March 2013
See also BSCG’s leaflet on Groundhoppers of Badenoch & Strathspey written by Tim Ransom.
Grasshoppers and Crickets by Ted Benton was published in 2012 in the Collins New Naturalist Series (paperback £30).
This book on grasshoppers and their allies, that are in the insect order of Orthoptera, is packed with information. It has a feast of illustrations and includes a CD and written commentary that provides a fascinating insight into the behaviour of many British species.
A chapter on ecology and conservation of the British species includes what I found to be an absorbing account of pioneering studies of the ecology of this group. It also reviews more recent studies providing insight into the very low abundance and species richness in modern intensively farmed landscapes where biodiversity has been lost and opportunities need to be taken to restore it.
As well as numerous photos of grasshoppers, crickets and groundhoppers the pictures extend to representations of grasshoppers like the Gresham grasshopper at the Royal Exchange in London. There are photos of a range of other invertebrates. For example a stick insect, cockroaches, a mantid, a wasp spider, a solitary wasp and the striking caterpillar of the sycamore moth find a place too. There are even portraits of birds - an Asian paradise flycatcher and a satin bowerbird. These, with photos of the naturalists Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin, are included in a chapter on mating systems and sexual selection.
The species accounts follow a similar format to that found in Bumblebees also in the New Naturalist series and by Ted Benton, published in 2006. Both these well illustrated volumes have sections that can be dipped into for reference. There is an easily located identification key (pages 216 -238) that acknowledges that groundhoppers can be difficult to distinguish with certainty and confident identification should be based on several characters. This is illustrated with line drawings that are also numerous in a chapter on structure and function, describing such features as senses and acoustic apparatus.
Rare long-winged form of the common groundhopper
The distribution maps of British species are a useful feature. The map for the slender groundhopper omits the first Strathspey record (recorded by BSCG from a site threatened with development at Boat of Garten) although this was reported in British Wildlife before the book’s publication date.
The account of the common groundhopper, citing a 1988 general work, mentions strong populations in ancient pine and birch woods. Benton comments that this species has quite exacting habitat requirements and is vulnerable to such things as habitat loss from ‘development’. The fully- winged (or ‘macropterous’) form of the common groundhopper has been recorded by BSCG since 2009 on threatened sites in Strathspey. No illustration of this long-winged form is provided. Reviewing the status of this uncommon form, Benton mentions that it was listed from two Scottish sites by Kevan (1952) and referred to by Haes and Harding in the 1997 Atlas of Grasshoppers, Crickets and Allied insects of Britain and Ireland.
The book ends with many useful references covering an impressive range of topics, including for example the place of grasshoppers and crickets in Amerindian culture. I found Grasshoppers and Crickets an engaging and authoritative account of a fascinating group of insects that deserve increased attention in Scotland.
Edinburgh Court of Session Appeal Hearing Tue 12 & Wed 13 March 2013
- Details
- Written by Gus Jones
- Category: Debates
- Published: 11 March 2013
The case will be heard in the Court of Session in Edinburgh on Tuesday 12th and Wednesday 13th March 2013 starting at 10am each day. If you wish to attend simply go to the Court of Session on Parliament Square, Edinburgh (map), ask for the Cairngorms National Park case and the staff will tell you where to find the public gallery. We would welcome your presence in court.
Wanted - Holyrood Valentines
- Details
- Written by Gus Jones
- Category: Debates
- Published: 14 February 2013
Three cheers for those MSPs who have agreed to champion one of the Highland species affected by human impacts such as development, habitat loss, climate change and pollution.
Over twenty parliamentarians have signed up to the scheme. Champions for Highland wildife include Dave Stewart (Greater yellow bumblebee), Rhoda Grant (Golden eagle and wildcat), Mary Scanlon (Freshwater pearl mussel), Jamie McGrigor (narrow-headed ant), Rob Gibson (rusty bog moss), and Dave Thompson (sandeel). Mr Stewart recently tabled a parliamentary motion encouraging more MSPs to become wildllife champions, while Mr McGrigor has officially asked the government what it is doing to protect the narrow headed ant.
But other species are in danger of being left on the shelf. They include -otters; adders; juniper; the one-flowered wintergreen; the dark bordered beauty; the pine hoverfly; the aspen hoverfly; the northern damselfly; the kentish glory, a moth extinct in England but found in the Highlands.
One species yet to find a champion is the Violet oil beetle (Meloe violaceus), a cuckoo of the insect world. The beetle's larvae find flowers likely to be visited by a solitary bee. When an unsuspecting bee appears, the larva hitches a ride to the bee's underground nest .Here it devours food the bee has gathered for its own young and eats the bee's own eggs. Oil beetles also produce a bitter 'oil' from their leg joints that wards off enemies. Intriguingly, this oil attracts midges that feed on the 'oil' without harming the beetle. Some oil beetle species are extinct in Britain.
Many species with no parliamentary champions are associated with the Cairngorms. We hope that before Valentines day is over more of the unclaimed species will have found partners.
AGM & Talk: The Cairngorms Rare Plants Project
- Details
- Written by Administrator
- Category: Meetings
- Published: 05 November 2012
AGM on Thursday 15th November at 7.00pm in Inverallan Church Hall, Grantown.
8.00pm, Public Talk: ‘The Cairngorms Rare Plants Project’ by Dr Andy Scobie
The talk will be given by the Project Officer, Dr Andy Scobie, who will be describing his discoveries and updating us on the findings of this fascinating project.
Letter: Another proposed development for the Mossie
- Details
- Written by Administrator
- Category: Debates
- Published: 21 September 2012
Dear Sir,
I feel compelled to write to you about further potential development plans for the area of land in Grantown known as the Mossie.
Grantown residents will recall that the Mossie is a floodplain and a hot spot for a wealth of rare and interesting wildlife. The burns that run through it provide a foraging route for Otter.
Many residents and a local conservation group believe that the Mossie should be preserved as a nature reserve.
The furore surrounding the recent Muir Homes attempt to develop a large part of the Mossie with over 200 homes should still be fresh in the minds of the residents of Grantown.
With that in mind, you would think that the same application would still be reasonably fresh in the mind of Cairngorm National Park Planners, especially since they took a great deal of flack from local residents, conservationists and ultimately Scottish Government Reporters in connection with that matter.
SEPA sustained an objection to the development throughout that application on the basis that built development cannot take place on a functional flood plain. New development itself would not only be at risk, but it would add to the risk of flooding elsewhere.
As a direct consequence of Muir Homes’ failed application, National Park Planners zoned a large area of land to the south-west of Seafield Avenue for future housing development. This now forms part of the National Park adopted Local Plan.
It is worth pointing out that not one brick had been laid in this large virgin newly zoned area.
It may then come as some surprise that National Park Planners are quietly seeking opinion about zoning an area of land on the Mossie for future housing development. Park Planners are describing this as a ‘future opportunity’ and describing this process as an ‘informal consultation’.
The area of land in question is directly to the west of Mossie Road with the only conceivable access via the small cul-de-sac off Mossie Road.
Park Planners have officially sought the opinion of the Grantown and vicinity Community Council whose members did not feel that the Mossie should be developed for housing.
There was no such engagement for the residents of Grantown whose only hope of uncovering the information regarding this ‘informal consultation’ would have been to trawl through the Park’s website. It would seem that Park Planners have not felt the need to connect directly with the local communities which they serve.
Residents could be forgiven for thinking that there is sufficient land already zoned for future housing development in Grantown. It may be that some of your readership supports this ‘opportunity’, or perhaps your readers would prefer to see the Mossie safeguarded as a Nature Reserve. Whatever their opinion, they have a right to express it and should inform Park Planners before Friday 28th September 2012.
Comments can be emailed to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or sent to Albert Memorial Hall, Station Square, Ballater, AB35 5QB.
More information, including maps, can be found on The National Park’s website: www.cairngorms.co.uk/park-authority/planning/local-plan/local-development-plan/
Name & address supplied.
Published in The Badenoch and Strathspey Herrald, 20 September 2012.