calls

I am slowly and unsurely trying to work my way through the various insect calls that enliven the late summer and early fall. The loudest day-time calls are from one (or more?) of the Dog-day Cicadas which have a pattern of crescendos and decrescendos of their characteristic buzz. The effect is (especially close-up) like a motor starting up, sometimes with repeated fresh starts within, and then dying down only to rev up again before finally dying away completely. Some of the calls seem more high-pitched and steady but I'm not sure if this isn't an effect of distance or perhaps individual variation. They are concentrated in the hottest part of the day and the hottest part of the summer; hence the very evocative name.

Night calls are dominated by the numerous Katydids with their incessant "katy-did, katy didn't" and, as is well known, the speed of the katydid calls varies according to the temperature (Katydids keep going right into cooler weather but at a much less frenzied tempo). But they are not the only night-callers. Their familiar sounds are set against a steady buzzing background of another insect. Are these also cicadas or some other species that sings only at night? The high-pitched background buzz is strong and steady and seems to last the whole night long. It's the sort of insect sound that movie makers put on the sound track of their night-time scenes, especially night-time scenes in the swamp or the jungle. But what is it? And then against that wall of sound, there is another set of insect sounds, lower in pitch and seeming to constantly stop and start. The start-up is clearly audible as a rising in pitch, then followed by a steady state and then stopping abruptly only to start up again moments later. Again, what is it?

Other kind of insects calls that are easily distinguished are the chirps and clicks of various species of crickets. These are more common in the evening and some, Tree Crickets perhaps, continue to call into the dark. There are notably crickets calling in the marsh but they sound quite similar to those that call around or even in the house. Again, I would like to know what species.

I can do a certain amount of birding simply by listening out the window (we have a screened porch where I like to work and it is essentially all windows). Certain sounds from the creek are quite regular: the rattle of the Kingfisher, the loud squawks of the Green Herons, and the various Osprey whistles. I also hear the call of Yellowlegs (mostly Greater) and sometimes the distant but clear scream of a Red-tailed Hawk soaring over Pine Neck on the opposite side of the creek). The noisy Willets that were here all spring and into the early summer are gone and their loud calls no longer provide the day's background music. The tern calls are now reduced to occasional Royals; the Commons and Leasts heard earlier are gone. The gulls -- Herring, Black-backed, Ring-billed and sometimes Laughing -- get into bouts of loud angry calling but I can never figure out what the racket is about or which noisy call belongs to whom.

Eric Salzman