Katydid

Katydid

Sitting outside this afternoon, I tried guessing at the temperature by listening to some crickets. I do know that crickets chirp faster as temperatures rise, and slower when temperatures fall. 

I'm sure my father was unaware of Dolbear’s Law when he told me about crickets and temperature. The actual formula is temperature = 50+[(N-40)/4] where N = the number of chirps per minute). I was an English major and math is not one of my strengths, but by counting I could tell it was getting cooler. 

Actually, those summer insect love songs are disappearing as the weather cools. If you can't distinguish a cricket "song" from a cicada or a katydid, listen to a field cricket sound. 

As an amateur phenologist (one who studies the seasonal changes in plants and animals), I'm interested in these sounds. Cicadas are kind of creepy looking and their cast-off skins that they leave attached around the backyard are also creepy. 

Katydids are much nicer looking in their bright green. It is difficult to find them, but easy to hear their eponymous "Katy did! Katy did!” call from the trees. Can you hear females answering “Katy didn’t, didn’t, didn’t?” Take a listen to them  They hide with their wings that look like leaves in the treetops. The katydids are singing for love, lust and a mate. The mating season runs August through mid-October.

They start singing sometime in August, but, if you can identify when they start their summer song, weather lore says that autumn will arrive 90 days later. I'm not sure I caught the first katydid, but I posted elsewhere that I noticed them for the first time on August 19. That would mean that autumn will arrive here in NJ November 17. Let's all mark our calendars.