Grasshopper
Grasshoppers eat large quantities of foliage both as adults and during their development, and can be serious pests of arid land and prairies. Pasture, grain, forage, vegetable and other crops can be affected. Grasshoppers often bask in the sun, and thrive in warm sunny conditions, so drought stimulates an increase in grasshopper populations. A single season of drought is not normally sufficient to stimulate a major population increase, but several successive dry seasons can do so, especially if the intervening winters are mild so that large numbers of nymphs survive. Although sunny weather stimulates growth, there needs to be an adequate food supply for the increasing grasshopper population. This means that although precipitation is needed to stimulate plant growth, prolonged periods of cloudy weather will slow nymphal development.
Brown thrasher
This bird is omnivorous, which has a diet that includes insects, berries, nuts and seeds, as well as earthworms, snails, and sometimes lizards and frogs. Across seasons and its breeding range, it was found 63% of stomach contents were made of animal matter, the remaining 37% being plant material. During the breeding season, the diet consists primarily of beetles, grasshoppers, and other arthropods, and fruits, nuts and seeds. More than 80% of the diet of brown thrasher from Illinois is made of animal matter, about 50% being beetles. In Iowa, about 20% of the summer diet was found to consist of grasshoppers. By the late summer, it begins to shift towards more of a herbivore diet, focusing on fruits, nuts, seeds, and grains, 60% of the food in Illinois being fruits and seeds. By winter, the customary diet of the brown thrasher is fruit and acorns. Wintering birds in Texas were found to eat 58% plant material (mainly sugar berry and poison ivy) and 42% animal material in October; by March, in the dry period when food supply is generally lower, 80% of the food became animal and only 20% plants. Vertebrates are only eaten occasionally and are often comprised by small reptiles and amphibians, such as lizards, small or young snakes, tree frogs and salamanders.