We've had crickets for the past couple weeks, up to a dozen chirping across the yard and grass area behind our house. We live off South Hill between Puyallup and Graham. I was afraid we would miss out this year due to the cool summer but they've come out in force (well, as forceful as they come in our marine environment). It is such a peaceful, lovely sound.

Ted
Fredrickson, WA

On Sep 8, 2011, at 3:12 PM, jeff gibson <gibsondesign at msn.com> wrote:

> One of my favorite sounds in nature is the chirping of crickets, and other insects. This is maybe a case of 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' because, for a lifelong Puget Lowlander, there are almost none to hear around here. However, as a kid in Seattle back in the late 60's , early 70's, during the very rare heat waves, I would hear a few in my West Seattle neighborhood. A very few. I knew crickets from many Eastern Washington camping trips and when I was a kid my family had a leased lot in Conconully where we vacationed for years. Of course plenty of calling bugs there. In 24 years living in Everett, I haven't heard a peep.
>
> Several years ago in late August , at Wildberry Lake, Mason Co. Wa, where my family has property, my daughter called out "Dad look at this!", and in her hand was a big green Katydid, which turned out to be a female Fork-tailed Bush Katydid (Scudderia furcata) - a full 2 inches long, looking much like a bright green leaf with legs and antennae. I didn't know we had such around here. Later that evening, walking through a nearby clearcut I heard a pleasant but subtle chorus of insect song, that wasn't field crickets. "Katydids" I thought excitedly. However, checking the Internet (several years after the fact) I think these were probably a type of Short-horned Grasshopper (marsh meadow grass grasshopper). Which was cool also. During the day the area has the loud keening of Cicada's going on hot days - the swelling and diminishing sound of which gives the illusion of the bug flying around, but really it's just a false "doppler effect"- the cicadas are calling from a perch.
>
> Another few years ago I heard field crickets on San Juan Island, in early October - a small chorus in the limestone quarry at Roche Harbor, on a sunny afternoon. It made sense because this is a dryer area than most of the Puget Lowlands and the rocky south-facing slopes heat up. It seems that heat and dryness are somewhat of a prerequisite for crickets and other singing bugs around here.
>
> So my query is - do any of you tweeters out there hear any "crickets" (or any other calling bugs) in the Puget Lowlands? The fields of the Fill, or Discovery Park, maybe? Or wherever. I would imagine more to be heard farther south of the sound, the Oak Prairies, ect. It's about as hot as it's gonna get this year, so now would be the time. If you want to respond offsite, I'll compile the results of my non scientific query and report on tweeters.
>
> At the end of September I will be briefly traveling to the "Great Humid East", (Wisconsin) where "singing bugs" are in amazing abundance. Crickets, Katydids, ect all night. On my few trips back there I felt like a kid in a candy store. I couldn't sleep, not because of the 'noise', but because I just wanted to listen all night. A few years ago on an August trip to southern Ontario - alive with bugsound day and night - I told folks there that where I'm from, the night is almost completely quiet. They didn't believe me.
>
> For online sound recordings and info check out www.musicofnature.org/songsofinsects/
>
> Jeff Gibson, Everett Wa
>
>
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