The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Tiny froghopper’s amazing ability to jump is another of nature’s miracles
It’s called cuckoo spit but it’s got nothing to do with cuckoos and it’s not spit, though it could easily be mistaken for spit. It sounds like some magic ingredient for a witch’s brew, but in reality it’s a botanical misnomer. Out walking at this time of year you can’t miss the white, frothy blobs on tall grasses in the woods and shady places.
Cuckoos, of course, don’t spit and the blobs are the secretion of the tiny nymphs of sap-sucking insects known as froghoppers which develop inside the froth. It keeps them moist in hot weather and protects them from predators. They are nothing to do with frogs and they don’t hop, but the adults have huge back leg muscles and can jump phenomenal distances in relation to their size.
It’s another wonder of nature that something as small as a froghopper can create such copious amounts of spit in relation to its size. A bit like spiders which seem able to spin endless silk.
Countryside lore is that cuckoo spit coincides with the hatch of the froghopper aphids and the arrival of cuckoos in the spring when they return from their winter quarters in southern Africa. I’ve not heard a cuckoo’s distinctive call round our way for several summers now, so the one isn’t dependant on the other.
The cuckoos emigrate to the UK each summer just to lay their eggs. They don’t build a nest but invade an unsuspecting host bird’s nest, such as meadow pipit, pied wagtail or reed warbler. They remove one of the victim’s eggs and lay a single egg of their own in its place.
This is known as brood parasitism which means that the host birds incubate the cuckoo egg as well as their own. Strangely the foster birds never question that suddenly they have a much larger egg in the nest that wasn’t there only moments earlier. It takes a female cuckoo only 11 seconds to lay an egg in a host bird’s nest and she will lay up to 30 eggs in 30 nests.
Once all the eggs are hatched the larger cuckoo chick instinctively begins to kill its host chicks by pushing them out of the nest. The unwitting foster parents are run ragged feeding a monster chick which grows so large that the foster parents sometimes have to stand on its back to feed it.
In a spirit of enterprise and scientific advancement I undertook some research to discover why froghoppers are so called. With the end of a grass, I gently scraped away the cuckoo spit from the stalk of another and there beneath was the little bug. It was a greeny colour but it didn’t look remotely like a frog. In its immature stage they have tiny legs incapable even of hopping but the adults can jump further than the common flea.
It’s another of nature’s miracles that such tiny insects are capable of such extraordinary physical achievement. If we humans could harness such strength for ourselves we’d rule the world.
We’re only in the middle of the breeding season. Many garden songbirds are feeding a second brood and we get the fledglings visiting our garden.
Two glittering eyes transfixed me. Peering from beneath a shrub a young thrush crouched motionless. It was waiting to be fed by its parent birds which flew in tirelessly with beaks full of the beasties and creepy crawlies that their chick thrives on. The moment I took my eye off it, its natural sense of survival took over and it whisked into cover beneath the big, green leaves of one of the Doyenne’s hostas.
By a busy roadside a young peewit, all long legs waiting for its body to grow into them, was confused by the constant traffic. It didn’t know whether to try to cross the road or slip back into the undergrowth again. They are very fragile looking at this stage and look constantly surprised – which they most likely are.
It’s the time of year when ticks are prevalent and there are warnings of the dangers of tick bites. Ticks can transmit the debilitating Lyme disease to dogs and to us humans too. If your dog displays loss of appetite or lethargy or other unexpected symptoms it may be Lyme disease and it’s best to seek your vet’s advice sooner rather than later.
All our dogs at one time or another have picked up ticks from the undergrowth. I’ve removed them with a proprietary tick remover which you can buy from your pet shop.
Luckily, none of the dogs have ever had adverse reactions to the nasty little blood suckers.
I’ve only once required to get treatment personally for a bite. I was given a course of tablets lasting a fortnight and strict instructions to finish the treatment without fail. I did what I was told – I was too concerned about the consequences if I didn’t.
The unwitting foster parents are run ragged feeding a monster chick