We've checked the rose bushes every day, looking for the katydid. She's so well camoflaged that she's very difficult to see against the green leaves; she looks just like a leaf herself, but we haven't seen her since we got back from our trip to Oregon.
We really enjoyed trying to find her before we left. One day before we left I looked for at least five minutes before I found her, directly in front of my nose about twelve inches away. Another day I saw her in the morning, then Cindy and I looked again when we went for our walk about noon but we couldn't find her although we looked for about twenty minutes before we gave up.
Katydids apparently don't move around a lot; one may spend its entire life on the same tree or plant. Ours seemed to move around at night and then be stationary during the daylight hours. Although she never seemed to move very far from where she had been the previous day, her camouflage was so good that she was still difficult to spot unless she was on top of a leaf. Even then you had to check every single leaf to be sure because her color was so close to the color of the leaves, the veining on her sides looked like leaf veining and her articulated legs looked like leaf stems.
Now we don't know where to start looking for her or even if she's still there. Did she move on to another plant or leave altogether? If she did, did she lay eggs before she left?
Who knows what katydid did, but we enjoyed her while she was here.
