Grasshopper Vibes

WILD BY NATURE PODCAST | EPISODE 3 — Listen to the lazy late-summer whirs of grasshoppers as they rattle through the air at my campsite at the base of Beaver Mountain.

Recorded in the late afternoon of August 30, 2022, at Moraine Park Campground in Rocky Mountain National Park. Elevation 8,180 feet.

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The view of Fern Canyon and Gabletop Mountain from my campsite. Incidentally, that’s my neighbor’s tent in the foreground, not mine.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK, COLORADO — I recently spent a few days camping at Moraine Park Campground in the heart of Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s been two years since I last camped in the mountains, and I was thrilled to get back into the wilderness again, even if only for a few nights.

My campsite sat at the far edge of the campground near Beaver Mountain. It was a terrific site, with a small ridge of rocks that sheltered my tent. At dawn, I climbed the ridge to watch the first hints of sunshine wash over Gabletop Mountain and flood Fern Canyon.

The mornings were comfortably cool. I spent them hiking, taking photographs, and chatting with my campsite neighbors. The afternoons were ferociously hot, so that’s when I retreated to the shade of a ponderosa pine to relax and read a book.

My Sony PCM D100 and Clippy EM272 stereo microphones, which I positioned at the edge of my campsite to capture the fluttering of grasshoppers.

During these sweltering afternoons, the fluttering wing clicks of grasshoppers filled the air—an iconic summertime vibe that I could not resist recording. This clicking, known as crepitation, is produced during the courtship display when male grasshoppers repeatedly snap their wings taut while flying to create an auditory performance that (hopefully) impresses the females watching on the ground below. I’m not sure which species of grasshoppers I recorded, but I believe it was some kind of Bandwing Grasshopper (Oedipodinae).