Head scratching

A better day, remaining dry, but rather overcast and autumnal - ideal for more garden tidying. We dithered with going for a walk, but never quite got around to it.

Luckily Pete had brought back a couple of Woodland Grasshoppers from Surrey on Friday, so I had something to photograph. This male was very well-behaved, sitting on a leaf eating some grass before giving himself a brush-up, though it does look as though he's scratching his head in consternation in my main image.

You can see the whole grasshopper in the extra. This is a southern species and favours warm, sunny, open patches of woodland and woodland rides. Where it does occur it can be quite numerous. It's quite distinctive  as it's much darker than other grasshoppers, the male being almost black with a red tip to the abdomen. The maxillary palps are also white-tipped, best seen in the main image.