Land cleared for rare grasshopper

The grasshopper was spotted after a 14 year absence

Somerset Wildlife Trust has completed a conservation project on the Blackdown Hills to make its sites more grasshopper friendly.

The charity won a grant to carry out scrub clearance after the large marsh grasshopper was spotted there in 2006.

It was believed to have been extinct from the local area but this sighting prompted conservation experts to take action.

Now its hoped this work will pave the way for a grasshopper comeback.

The work has been carried out at Ringdown, Yarty Moor and Brimley Mire by Somerset Wildlife Trust and was funded by a £4,160 grant from the Blackdown Hills AONB Sustainability Fund.

'Constant battle'

Liz Biron, from the Somerset Environmental Records Centre, said: "In the case of Ringdown, it meant clearing scrub away from the best bits of wetland there.

"Scrub is like grass growing on your lawn over summer, as soon as you turn your back, it multiplies and spreads over large areas.

"It's a constant battle to keep that in check, and so it [the grant money] just enabled us to put an extra effort into clearing the scrub on the site."

The large marsh grasshopper prefers to live in wet, marshy areas and it also lays its eggs on sphagnum moss, which grows only in these boggy areas.

The last known recording of the large marsh grasshopper was on the peat moors of the Somerset Levels in 1995.

Liz Biron from the Somerset Environmental Records Centre, said: "Everybody thought it was extinct. Somerset Invertebrate Group had a special field day out at this reserve [Ringdown] and they were joined by some of the trainees from Somerset Environmental Records Centre.

"One of them, Claire Edwards, was there with all the great experts in entomology in Somerset and she was wondering over the mire and she saw this lovely big brightly coloured grasshopper.

"She thought that might be interesting so she put it very gently into a collecting tube and walked over to the group of experts and they turned green with envy that she'd been the one who'd re-found this wonderful grasshopper."

Now Somerset Wildlife Trust hopes its efforts will see greater numbers of large marsh grasshoppers in the future.