Good Cat? Bad Cat? Same Cat!
Field season is coming to a close, sadly, though its end was delayed by abnormally warm autumn here in NE Ohio. As of November 20th, we still haven’t had frost up here near Lake Erie.
But November will ultimately triumph.
When it does, however, our annual indoor singing insect ensemble will continue in gradually diminishing numbers for another couple of months.
As of now, we still have multiple Forbes’s Tree Crickets (the ones who look like and sound similar to our less-common Black-horned Tree Crickets), a Four-spotted Tree Cricket upstairs in the bedroom who sings us to sleep, and two Broad-winged Tree Crickets who are much too loud for the bedroom but perfect for the study and the living room.
Broad-winged Tree Cricket on the blackberry leaves in his cage.
There is also a Black-legged Meadow Katydid you'll hear more about in a subsequent post.
Where there are singing insect mesh cages, there will be a cat - specifically, Nikos. He enjoys listening to the crickets and katydids and even falls asleep listening to them. He often enjoys watching them as well.
…until he did.
What was he after? The fresh plant leaves in the cages – especially those for the Black-legged Meadow Katydids and my favorite …
Oliver the Oblong-wing Katydid.
The crickets and katydids always have mesh cages with many leaves and seed heads typical of their previous habitats. They seem to adapt quickly to these familiar plants and seeds, and this vegetation also provides the stages from which they sing.
Oliver’s large cage was quite lush with goldenrod, asters,
and blackberry leaves, and Nikos decided one night that he was going to get all those leaves any way he could!
He mashed down the top of the cage with his front legs. Then he dumped the entire cage on its side, resulting in the water bottles for the plants pouring their contents on the table, the floor, and into Oliver’s food.. Oliver’s hydration cubes and dry food floated on the water and his skewers of organic apple, grape, and Romaine lettuce were added to the mess.
Our normally sweet Nikos was uncharacteristically frustrated and angry, and so was I!
But where was Oliver? He didn’t drown in there, did he? I was horrified when I couldn’t find him!
When I was certain he had somehow escaped the disaster, I wasn’t so panicked. Oliver had slipped out on two earlier occasions when I was changing everything in his cage, and both times he flew up to a wall or ceiling and began to call: Scritch-it? Scritch – it-IT? Wendy and I each had an opportunity to follow his calls to his lofty locations and gently catch and return him to the safety of his cage.
But this time, I couldn’t see or hear Oliver... until finally…
Scritch-it? Scritch-it-IT?
He was OK somewhere, and I’d find him once he had a dry, upright, safe cage with plenty of plants. I was able to clean and dry up the messes, replace the plants, and resettle the restored katydid cage into a small room with a door I could tightly close.
It was time to find Oliver, catch him, and reestablish him in his refurbished cage.
I could hear him, but no matter where I searched, there was no katydid. He wasn’t on the walls, the ceiling, the windows, or any other surface I searched. I isolated the general area of the dining room from which his calls emanated and finally…
Scritch-it-IT?
There he was - warm, dry, and unharmed!
I promptly resolved that ANY cage with attractive leaves would now be kept in a
separate, secure room overnight.
Oliver lived for weeks after that and then quietly passed away from old age. Nikos calmed down and hasn’t attempted any subsequent raids.
And for now, Nikos is much more interested in basking in the late autumn sun while the remaining crickets and katydids sing under the south dining room windows.
Oliver is quite a tough katydid! Nikos is just like my cat, Cally!
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