There are nearly 20,000 identified species of leafhoppers in the world, although I haven't seen quite that many in our backyard here in Portland. I've done my best to identify them but I'm far from an expert so please don't take my word as gospel.
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The Wrong Camoflage?
Viewed up close on a rose bush leaf, this privet leafhopper seems to have the wrong camoflage — invisible on a brown leaf but easily visible on green. However, take a step back and the camoflage of this tiny brown hopper works quite well even on green leaves, appearing to be a little brown spot on the leaf and hardly worth a second glance.
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Long Distance Traveler
Rhodo hoppers are a part of the Cicadellinae family and dine only on the rhododendron family (such as rhododenrons and azaleas). There are several species that look very similar, but this is supposedly the only one out here in Oregon. From my understanding, they are native to the southeast of the United States but have hitched a ride even further than the Northwest to merry old England.
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I Could Hang Out Here All Day. In Fact, I Think I Will.
Rhodo hoppers may not eat the leaves of rose bushes but they don't mind resting on them. I discovered this little hopper while photographing a katydid that was eating a spent blossom elsewhere on the bush. It hung vertically on the leaf the entire evening but unfortunately I didn't discover my favorite vantage spot to photograph it until the last light of the day. A light breeze made macro photography challenging even in stronger light, so the pictures aren't quite as sharp as I like.
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Hopping Stripes
Just like racing stripes make a car go faster, hopping stripes let you hop farther. I’ve no idea if they work, as this hopper never moved from the leaf while I photographed it.
Beautiful little thing though. |
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An Unexpected Favorite
In a year in which I visited the Tetons and Yellowstone, I never expected one of my favorite wildlife pictures to be taken in my own backyard.
We have several different types of leafhoppers in our yard, I spotted this blue-green sharpshooter on a rose bush and decided to play around with some handheld macros. Most macro pictures focus on high magnification, but since I was shooting handheld I shot more of an environmental macro. I used a shallow depth of field, which usually works against you in a macro picture but I love the way it turned the leaves and stems into an abstract of colors and shapes. |
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Man in the Hopper
Poets waxed about the man in the moon, but why not the man in the hopper? This little green leafhopper was on one of our rose bushes and I was intrigued by the yellow face on the hopper’s back.
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Sharpshooter
This blue-green sharpshooter is another species of leafhopper I found on the rose bush while photographing a katydid. These leafhoppers lack the red stripes of the rhododendron leafhoppers that were also hanging out on the bush.
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