Grassland invertebrates
1 sound
Now that grazing has been reduced on our site, the grasses and other herbaceous plants are being allowed to grow much larger than they did before. This is creating a deep litter layer of dead plant stems, which is a perfect habitat for many different invertebrate species. These recordings were made by placing microphones in this litter layer, to find out what might be living there. The sounds you can hear were made by beetles, grasshoppers and other insects as they move about this habitat. There are also many spiders, which are hunting these insects as prey. So partly what you can hear is the sound of insects running away from the spiders!
