| operations |
| comment | | "parent_author":"",<br>"parent_permlink":"gardening",<br>"author":"nikv",<br>"permlink":"say-hello-to-my-little-friend",<br>"title":"Say hello to my little friend",<br>"body":"![grasshopper3.jpg (https:\/\/cdn.steemitimages.com\/DQmU11osA74VxGKv7syixAsnRr4c4vV6SPcmPssf67E1HmR\/grasshopper3.jpg)\n\nI'm still busy digging up the vegetable patch and I spent the entire day digging and sieving soil. I have come to an extremely stony part so it's very slow-going but I am very close to half way now. As I went inside after I had enough for they day,<br> I found this critter perched inside,<br> probably brought inside by the cats. Although they like hunting them,<br> the locusts usually escape because they are large and those spiky back legs pack quite a punch.\n\n![grasshopper.jpg (https:\/\/cdn.steemitimages.com\/DQmVaetaxqz1urySkqtr6C5ya4CmAuTFN4L731YLRwFimfp\/grasshopper.jpg)\n\nGarden locusts,<br> _Acanthacris ruficornis_ are found all over Africa but this is the first time I have lived somewhere which had them. There are a lot of them in the garden but they aren't swarming pests like some species,<br> nor are they massively destructive,<br> so I just leave them alone and let the cats and the birds do population control,<br> I see no good reason to use poison in the garden. They are also semi-nocturnal,<br> they rub their wings against their leg,<br> called _stridulation_,<br> in the early evening and they are really loud. I always wondered whether it was some kind of weird bird call before I realised that it was actually these guys. It's not a chirp like a cricket makes but a loud,<br> rattly sound.\n\n![grasshopper2.jpg (https:\/\/cdn.steemitimages.com\/DQmZfKU4QuetYbkGxSvRcXHVgX9MdXi8KiiiApKkttA8FPU\/grasshopper2.jpg)\n\nIt's likely that they are common in my garden because they lay their eggs in dry sandy soil and there's no shortage of that up here on the hill",<br>"json_metadata":" \"tags\":[\"gardening\",<br>\"nature\",<br>\"grasshoppers\",<br>\"palnet\",<br>\"creativecoin\" ,<br>\"image\":[\"https:\/\/cdn.steemitimages.com\/DQmU11osA74VxGKv7syixAsnRr4c4vV6SPcmPssf67E1HmR\/grasshopper3.jpg\",<br>\"https:\/\/cdn.steemitimages.com\/DQmVaetaxqz1urySkqtr6C5ya4CmAuTFN4L731YLRwFimfp\/grasshopper.jpg\",<br>\"https:\/\/cdn.steemitimages.com\/DQmZfKU4QuetYbkGxSvRcXHVgX9MdXi8KiiiApKkttA8FPU\/grasshopper2.jpg\" ,<br>\"app\":\"steemit\/0.1\",<br>\"format\":\"markdown\" " |
|