Stalking the Wild Katydid

 One of the things I love about the Sycamore Greenway is that every visit can be  treasure hunt. Sometimes you know exactly what you are hoping to find: the orioles you hear down by the Sycamore Apartments, or that patch of Swamp Milkweed that was just about ready to bloom last week. Sometimes you go out without a plan or a map and just see what there is to see. Sometimes you get lucky and a deer ambles with halting steps across the path right in front of you, or a hawk soars overhead so low you can hear the soft whump of its wings through the air.

This week, walking through the grass alongside the Greenway set off a cascade of teeny tiny hoppers rushing ahead of my feet in a miniature buggy wave. They were the tiniest of grasshopper nymphs, most less than a centimeter long, with adorably oversized heads and expressive little antennae. There were a variety of colors: speckled brown, a lighter green with black stripes along its body, pale yellow.

How adorable is that?

I can take photos of grasshoppers all day. They are photogenic and docile (or, less charitably, perhaps a bit dumb), landing on the surface of leaves or grasses and holding still almost until the lens bumps them in the face.

But then, just for a second as I focused on yet another little grasshopper nymph--a baby katydid hopped into sight. And just as quickly, before I could refocus, it was gone. Katydids are far more discreet; you can hear their susurrations during the hot days of summer, but they are not as ubiquitous as their short-horned grasshopper relatives. They tend to hang out on the underside of leaves, and their shape and coloring is rather leaf-like as well.

But seeing that glimpse of a baby katydid gave me a mission, a new treasure to find. I had dozens of pictures of grasshoppers, but I must have a katydid. Thus commenced a good thirty minutes of crawling in the mowed grass alongside the trail, flushing waves of grasshoppers. Always grasshoppers. Walkers and bicyclists passed me (if you are reading this, I'm very sorry for the spectacle), with my rump up in the air, passing my hands along the grass trying to herd the minuscule nymphs into view.

I wasn't going to give up--there had to be katydids among all the grasshoppers. I had seen one, hadn't I? And I could occasionally hear their adult counterparts singing off in the taller grass nearby. But I was going to run out of Greenway eventually.

Then--just before the trail turns sharply to the west, I spotted an absurdly long pair of antennae waving from behind a blade of grass. Careful maneuvering revealed a delicate, almost translucent green katydid  nymph. I moved slowly, mindful of the katydid's more skittish nature, and snapped several photos. It made a few short hops but did not disappear from view for another minute, my breath held the entire time.

I got my katydid, I got some photos. I got my treasure for the day. 




My prize: