Mid-summer onwards is the best time for recording our grasshoppers and crickets. In very general terms, bush crickets have very-long antenna (at least as long as the insects body length), while grasshoppers and groundhoppers have short antenna (much shorter than the total body length). There are six main bush cricket species in RCT and they are relatively easy to identify. The dark bush cricket is mainly found in the southern parts of RCT in denizen of hedgerows, rank grass edges and bramble patches. Its song is a short chirp and can be heard throughout the late summer and well into autumn. The speckled bush cricket, and oak bush cricket, are species of woodlands, hedgerows and scrub. Both are difficult to find, although both are well distributed and locally common. However, oak-bush crickets will readily enter houses and can be found on bedroom ceilings. Speckled bush-crickets have a high pitched, inaudible call which is most easily heard by using a bat detector (another good reason for buying one).

In the last thirty years there has been a remarkable movement of certain bush cricket species north and west across the British Isles in response to climate change. The fourth and fifth bush crickets are the short winged-cone head and long-winged cone head. These are a species of our marshy grassland/rhos pasture sites which have both colonised our area in recent decades, as has Roesel’s bush cricket which is now found in some of our drier grassland sites. A lost species we still hope to find in RCT, is the bog-bush cricket, a specialist of lowland peat bogs that has been previously found in the Pencoed/Brynna area, on RCT / Bridgend border.

Grasshoppers are more difficult to differentiate and need a bit more practice and care. Presently we have records for only four species (although all four can occur in large numbers). Three species are highly characteristic of a wide range of tall grassland habitats, these are the common green, common field and meadow grasshoppers. All three are perhaps most easily distinguished by their calls.

Groundhoppers are small, inconspicuous close relatives of grasshoppers. Two species, the common and slender groundhopper have been recorded in the County Borough. Both of these species are most easily found on bare ground habitats such as coal spoil, stripped industrial plateaus and even allotments.

There is much to learn about the distribution and status of bush crickets, groundhoppers and grasshoppers. If you manage to learn the songs, then identification is made easier and you can acquire an impressive new party trick to impress family and friends.