I caught this grasshopper in a recent visit to the Pinewood Battery at the Lung Fu Shan Country Park. The children were happy to see it and it was in fact the first time Chiu Yin saw and touched a grasshopper!
As you can see, the grasshopper was not frightened of me and stayed calmly on my thumb. I released it after taking the photo.
When I was small, grasshoppers were common insects. Where there were grasses, there were grasshoppers. Probably due to the use of insecticide, grasshoppers are not easily seen in the city nowadays .
In those lovely old days, we collected ice lolly sticks to build grasshopper cages.
The procedures for making such a grasshopper cage are as follows:
1. Stack the ice lolly sticks in an orderly manner so that they form a # shaped structure with about 20 to 30 layers.
2. Fix the position of the structure by rubber bands.
3. Add additional sticks to the first and the last layers of the structure to fill the gaps in the middle of the # shaped structure.
4. Pull one or two sticks in the first layer out as an opening - you can then put your grasshopper(s) into the cage.
5. Close the opening by fitting the stick(s) back to the original position - you can then lock up your grasshopper(s).
We can of course purchase beautiful grasshopper cages (mostly made of plastic) from the bird shops. However, a cage made from ice lolly sticks really brings back memories.In the old days, it was very easy to bring home a cage full of grasshoppers after an hour's "hunting". We "kidnapped" the grasshoppers as pets and fed them with grasses (some unlucky ones became the snacks of caged birds.)
I am planning to build an ice lolly stick grasshopper cage again for the boys' use in their next visit to the Peak. What I need is the material!
P.S. I did one subsequently. Click here to see.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment