WildCrickets Cornwall: Could field crickets make a UK comeback?
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Field Crickets are extremely rare in the UK despite being very abundant in N Spain. We wanted to test the idea that the UK population is not restricted by a shortage of habitat, but because these flightless insects cannot recolonise areas where they once lived, but are now extinct.
We collected crickets from a variety of habitats in N. Spain, and reared their offspring in captivity until they were almost adults. In April 2022 we released 64 crickets into a meadow on Goongillings farm on the south coast of Cornwall. These crickets bred successfully with no further human intervention and the following summer there were over a thousand adults. |
The last of the 2nd generation of adults died out by July as expected. We monitored their offspring over the winter, searching for burrows weekly. Most nymphs remained underground in a hibernation state (called diapause). However, a minority were active all winter which we have never observed before.
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In May 2024 the 3rd generation of adults started to emerge and the meadow is again full of song with more than 1500 individuals who are now more concentrated lower down the field, possibly because the slope is steeper and the vegetation is a little shorter. The populations size is getting harder to estimate because they have spread into 3 neighbouring fields where the density is much lower.
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Visit WildCrickets Cornwall! The best time is between the middle of May and the end of June. More males sing when it's sunny or if the air temp is over 18 degrees. Join the footpath to Scott’s Quay here. Follow the footpath for a few hundred metres and as you enter the last fields before the Helford river you will start to hear crickets singing. The highest density is in the final field. Walk slowly though the meadow looking for bare patches of soil and burrows like this:
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