Saturday, August 23, 2008

Noisy bugger

The insect that makes all the noise in the garden is what the Spanish call chicharra - we would call it a cicada.

cicada

Sadly not my photograph

Cicadas like heat and do their most spirited singing during the hotter hours of a summer day. In fact it seems the hotter it gets, the louder they become.

Only males produce the cicadas' distinctive sound which can be as loud as 120 dB at close range - among the loudest of all insect-produced sounds.

It can be difficult to determine which direction the cicada song is coming from, because the low pitch carries well. They also seem to sense your approach and stop "singing" when you get close making it difficult to locate them.

One thing for sure, you can't have a nap outside when one is in full song.

1 comment:

Pete said...

I well remember the first time I heard crickets really going for it. It was in Chicago on a very hot and humid evening.

I knew what they sounded like but I had no conception whatsoever of the sheer volume! I honestly thought it was car alarms going off until the true origin was explained to me!