I’m not sure why this little grasshopper sitting on the trail caught my eye, but it’s probably a good thing it did because it was about to be stepped on. I took some photos and thought, ‘Maybe I can get one of it jumping away.’ So I scuffed a foot in its direction. I knocked my water bottle over with a thud. I leaned in, casting an ominous shadow its way. It twitched a couple of times, skittered to face a different way, but no jump. Of course, I knew exactly what would happen. I straightened, putting my camera away and admitting defeat and the grasshopper duly pinged away into the grass.
With those kind of survival skills it will have a good chance of attaining the size of the grasshopper below, which I saw on the lanai some time ago. When I got close, it leapt straight into a railing, but it too survived. They’re both Schistocerca nitens I think. It’s one of those troublesome invasive species so common in Hawaii.
Graham's Island 
I just finished a little ditty “Skeletons of the Sahel”; the American ship Commerce foundered off the coast of Africa around 1840. The crew
finally captured by muslim tribes people and enslaved as camel drivers. They made long circuits through the desert sometimes encountering others, all
slave and camel owners who negotiated for hours, sometimes with scimitars in order to get a price. All were subject to days, even weeks without water.
Ah, you might guess; tsiq – a mix of urine and camel milk was the beverage of convenience. Luck sometimes would bring them locust swarms – very choice eating after capture of hundreds of pounds and dried. Each carried his own bag of the nibbles. Sometimes they found snails on the thorn bushes that sustained the camels. Etc.
Cheers
jj
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