Not the clearest photos, but considering that I was teetering on a dining room chair attempting to focus on a moving insect who stilt-walked from wall, to ceiling, to curtain, perhaps understandable.
Tis the season of large insects that zoom, bounce and whir, landing in the cat yard, clinging to screens, popping in the open sliding door.
Some of them have been 'helped' inside by a cat--in the space of an hour I gently extracted two grasshoppers from Teasel's clamped jaws. Charlie brought me an impressive black buzzy thing with iridescent gauzy wings. Large metallic-green beetles rattle in and lie flailing on the floor while curious felines gather round to poke and prod.
Willow was very intrigued with the katy-did, leaping to the buffet for a closer look, then trying to scale the dining-room wall for a closer view while the thing bopped jauntily about.
The katydid is of the family tettigoniidae and in Britain is known as a 'bush crickett"--so says wikipedia.
One way of distinguishing a kaydid from a green grasshopper is by the length of the antennae--most visible in my second photo.
The other oddity of the day was this glossy purple pepper.
I sowed a few seeds from a packet of mixed sweet peppers.
This is one of only several plants that survived a rough season.
I made a stir-fy this afternoon with part of the pepper, an eggplant, a zuchinni and a tiny yellow crookneck squash, several pods of okra. . A bit of onion was sauteed before I added the sliced veggies which had been bathed in beaten egg, then dredged with seasoned flour.
Even 'the boy' who is modeling the pepper above, proclaimed it good, although mentioning that he preferred last week's fry which included bits of chicken.
I love the name Katy-did for a green cricket! Yours could so easily camouflage itself as a fresh green leaf.
ReplyDeleteWe usually have crickets around in the garden, but not this year, which has been a hard one for insects.
Lucy Cat is a terror to the small moths who fly through the windows in the evening. Few of them survive to fly another night.
Swop you a bat for a Katy-did! August is the time of bats here and I don't know how they get into the house, but they do. The cats have been known to deck one or two and kill them.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, our flying insects are mostly of the biting variety rather than beetles etc. I can see why American houses have screen doors now.
Like your purple pepper. I had to pick my entire Courgette harvest yesterday (one Courgette!) as that was being eaten by slugs . . .
There don't seem to be as many insects around this year as usual, normally we are plagued by wasps and large bluebottles in late summer but they have been more notable for their absence than their presence up to now. Our cold, wet summer has been hard on all our insects - shame it hasn't been hard on the slugs and snails which are around in plague like numbers!
ReplyDeletephew! glad that turned out to be a pepper, I presumed this was an insect post, so when I scrolled down the page I was horrified that it might be some kind of weird insect pupae!
ReplyDeleteI blame my husband, he makes me watch sci-fi with him :-D
I can be sure of always seeing something interesting on your post. And the stir-fry sounds wonderful.
ReplyDeleteLillian
Lillianscupboard.wordpress.com
like kath, my first thought was that it was some sort of cocoon. i too am glad it was a humble vegetable!
ReplyDeleteLeanne x
talesofsimpledays.blogspot.com
I should have warned my readers that there would be a fancy veg in the photo line-up--the purple pepper would have made a formidable insect.
ReplyDeleteBoth the garden world and the insect population seem to be out of kilter this season.