Well, it's grasshopper season again. I've spent the Summer watching little grasshoppers get bigger, and now there's plenty of big "mourning cloak" (aka band-winged, or Carolina) grasshoppers about in the fields, along the railroad tracks, or along gravel roads. These are the large grasshoppers with big black wings banded in yellow. Quite showy when they fly, they seem to disappear when they land on the ground- good camouflage. This seems to be a banner year for them around here - Everett and Snohomish.
One of the classic sounds of Summer, in my book, is the loud crackling sound these hoppers can make as they fly. The high-priced technical term for this is Crepitation; the crackling sound made by the wings in flight. (grasshoppers also Stridulate- create sound by rubbing their legs against their body. Crickets Stridulate by rubbing their wings together, source of their familiar chirping). I have fond childhood memories of listening to the crepitating band-winged grasshoppers as I spooked them up off some hot dusty road, in places like Cle Elum, Conconully, or at Wildberry lake in Mason county. etc. Wonderful.
Well, around where I hang out now, I ain't got no crepitation. Despite 25 years of listening around here I've heard no crepitation! The amusing thing to me is how well I've been programmed by early experience to expect it. Every time I see a big ol' band-winged grasshopper take off, and I see a lot of em', a little well of joy rises within me; I'm gonna hear that wonderful sound ! And then I don't. Silence. All these big hoppers flying around quiet as moth's. Luckily my automatic response to flying grasshoppers was based on joyful childhood experiences, rather than something traumatic that might cause a panic attack, sudden bowel evacuation, or temporary blindness. So I feel the joy, but I still ain't got no crepitation. Why, I don't know.
Now I wonder how I'll respond when I really do hear crepitation again, which I guess will require some travel on my part.
One new possible response to seeing big grasshoppers would be salivating, because one of these days I'm gonna fulfill a long desire to eat some. Did you know that people all around the world eat the things? It's true. Usually, saut?ed, boiled and dried, or somehow cooked. Good protein. Birds know this - these big bugs are popular with Kestrels and Shrikes, for example. It's interesting that we have our taboo's about bug eating, yet will think nothing of cracking into a big dungeness crab, the face of which would inspire the design of a creature suitable for a sci-fi horror flick. Just saying.
Hey bug watchers, got crepitation?
Jeff Gibsonwithout crepitation, inEverett Wa