Church Grasshoppers, 19th August 2024

Back in mid-August, a member of the local Greener Holbrook climate action group had commented that they had enjoyed the sound of grasshoppers at All Saints church on a sultry Sunday afternoon. This sort of instant, local information is an amazing resource to have for a sound recordist, and having previously recorded the early morning sounds of the church yard in January and the bee hives in May, I thought that this would be a great opportunity to make a different recording. At around 11am on the 19th of August I entered the churchyard and headed to the location mentioned on Facebook; an area of the church yard left un-mown to encourage wildlife. The weather report had promised a mainly sunny day, but with quite a robust breeze and before long I could hear some faint chirps and clicks coming from the long grass. I positioned my equipment and sat down to listen. There was a steady drone of buzzing and the occasional grasshopper call along with the faint rustle of the dry grass in the breeze and another ever-present sound of the wood pigeon. Researching grasshoppers later on that day I discovered that they are more sonically active in the afternoon, and the hotter and sunnier the conditions the better, but the recording below captures the sound of village insects during only free time I had available on that day.