Heat Wave Music at the Local Patch

 

     

Please note: SoundCloud has made significant changes that are affecting the visual presentation of my field recordings. I have yet to find a solution to this issue.

 

Many of you experienced the heat wave that lasted for a little over a week. It was miserable. It was likely miserable for the birds in the backyard, too, especially while attending to nestlings and fledglings.

We’ve always relied on ceiling fans and floor fans for our little bungalow, but this was the first time we were worried that this won’t be adequate as we age and the climate continues to warm. 

 

    

 

Our backyard inhabitants, however, have no choices, though our sprinkler offers a little bit of moisture and cooling.

Before the heat became too intense, my first temporary escape was a late-afternoon trip to a rural Geauga County park that’s a much-loved old friend of mine. 

 

 

It wasn’t as hot as our old, inner-ring suburb and I cherished the peace and privacy of a large meadow with no other humans around. Indigo Buntings, Field Sparrows, Song Sparrows, Common Yellowthroats…and enough quiet that I could easily hear every one of them. 

Lisa Rainsong · Song Sparrow, Mourning Dove, and wind

 

Back here at home, however, that degree of quiet is only a dream. Birds compete with landscaping crews armed with leaf blowers and string trimmers while huge riding mowers struggle to maneuver on small front lawns. 

Traffic on the nearby major street seems to increase every year and the bellowing of motorcycle ensembles roars late into the night. By day, I can see the windows and landing gear of ridiculously low-flying private jets preparing to land at the county airport. 

And the birds try to sing over all of it.

We provide a very nice habitat for them in our back yard. There’s an abundance of trees – pin oaks, red maples, an inoculated elm, white pine and yes, the typical backyard Norway spruces. We have smaller trees, including spicebush, redbud, and serviceberry, plus many native perennials, vines, ferns, and sedges that form a miniature forest understory. 

 

Deer routinely ate those native plants to the ground every year until we added a 6 foot chain link fence encircling the back yard without blocking the filtered light that reaches the ground.

 It’s also a welcoming habitat for Wendy and me, too.

 

But we can’t help with the noise.

By midweek, it was too exhaustingly hot to drive very far in search of peace. Fortunately for me, there is a park area relatively nearby where I can go after dark, enjoy slightly cooler temperatures, and listen to songs from the natural world – my “local patch.” 

 

Motorcycles roar down the winding road through the park as they do in the city, but when there’s less traffic, I can hear the silvery songs of Spring Trigs. These early season crickets are so small I have only seen them a few times.

 

Lisa Rainsong · Spring Trig and park road traffic

They sing within clumps of grasses and forbs and seem to have a particular fondness for poison ivy. I imagine they are pleased that this park has poison ivy as large as substantial shrubs.

 

I’ve been coming here for years, and these tiny northbound singers were not present until recently. Throughout much of NE Ohio, they are moving north as the climate warms and are now singing even within sight of Lake Erie.

That in itself was delightful, but I was here to listen to frogs. Amphibian choruses would be singing just a short distance away near the boardwalk along a lagoon.

I heard the Green Frogs first with a few Bullfrogs farther out in the water.

Lisa Rainsong · FrogFest at the lagoon

It’s been very dry as well as hot in NE Ohio – we’re technically in a moderate drought as of now, and the water level in the lagoon was quite low.  As a result, it was considerably easier to spot the Green Frogs than I’d expected                    

              

                                                                Green Frog 

                                                                    Bullfrog

The multitude of Green Frogs alone would be an excellent reason to visit this boardwalk after dark, but there was a larger ensemble ahead.

Lisa Rainsong · Gray Treefrogs featured in the FrogFest

Gray Treefrogs – my favorite amphibian singers!

They seem to descend from the woods to the ponds and wetland edges in mid-May and I find them in their temporary early summer residences into early July. They may be on tree trunks, in wetland vegetation, or on boardwalks, but unlike the Green Frogs, I never see them actually in the lagoon itself.

 

 

It’s a little challenging to determine how many Gray Treefrogs are actually calling, as I hear them almost nonstop in the darkness. Some call on slightly different pitches, which gives me a more accurate perception of the individual singers. 

Lisa Rainsong · Gray Treefrogs close enough to hear different pitches

Because they're spread out along the shallow edges of the lagoon, there’s no way to count their total numbers in the vegetation and on the tree trunks. 

It doesn’t really matter – it’s an impressive chorus that’s louder than all the Green Frogs and Bullfrogs combined!

 

                                           Gray Treefrogs can be green or brown

                                                
 

I reluctantly respected the park system’s closing time of 11pm, walking back past the singing Spring Trigs toward my car. 

Lisa Rainsong · Spring Trigs on the return path

I felt very fortunate for the option of spending time with the frogs at the lagoon, but sad for the backyard residents who have no escape from the noise and additional heat of my neighborhood. 

 

When I arrived home, I sat on the back porch steps watching multiple species of fireflies flashing from high in the trees to down in the gardens. A young raccoon approached along one of our wood chip paths and strolled past my feet without even a glance. Shortly thereafter, an opossum purposefully proceeded up the driveway and past the garage. 

We do what we can to create a welcoming space for all of them, but I wish we could help them – and us - with the heat and the noise.

 

Cleveland Heights and other Cleveland area residents, “Quiet Clean Heights” is working to address some of the noise issues I described in this piece. See their website at https://www.quietcleanheights.com/

Safety, Refuge, and Research

 

 I’m going to close my 2020 series of Listening in Nature posts with stories, photos, and recordings from my four-month field research project for the Geauga (County) Park District. Field research is typically immersive and richly rewarding for me. In this COVID year, my two places of safety and refuge were my home and the parks I studied.

This was the first year since 2012 that I’d spent my summer and fall studying singing insects for the Geauga Park District (GPD). I’ve surveyed crickets and katydids in all the counties in the extended Cleveland region of NE Ohio and created an online field guide for the seven-county area. But it was in Geauga County’s parks that I began my initial field study and research in 2008 and did multiple research projects between 2009 and 2012. Not surprisingly, the Geauga Park District feels like home. In a sense, it’s where I went to school when I was learning how to find, record, and identify singing insects.

For 2020, I created a research proposal that would document the species in each of four parks and park properties and how each location supported singing insect communities. I chose Holbrook Hollows in the southwest corner, Chickagami Park in the southeast corner, and both Observatory Park and an additional park property to represent the northeast.  

 

 

In addition to four separate locations, I imagined weaving all that data into a larger four-movement work that would compare species prevalence and range expansion between the southwest, southeast, and northeast corners of the county. 

It was an ambitious – and irresistibly fascinating - plan. I would be looking and listening for possible answers to the following questions that intrigued me:

Which species are becoming established in Geauga County as they move northward into this region? 

Do any parts of Geauga County still sound as they would have ten years ago because the northward species had not reached there yet?

Which properties have both Black-horned Tree Crickets and the look-alike Forbes’s Tree Crickets? I’ve been studying these two species for the past several years and Geauga is one of the NE Ohio counties in the species’ overlap zone.

I created this plan before COVID arrived in Ohio and submitted my proposal just a couple of weeks after all conservatory classroom teaching was moved online. Faculty and staff had just a few days to do what we could to prepare.

During the same time, virtually all of my upcoming naturalist teaching for the entire year was canceled.

But the grant was approved, and pandemic precautions would not limit my ability to pursue my field research

I was deeply anxious and worried about COVID, but also relieved that my survey would take me to the safety of the meadows, woods, and wetlands. I was primarily out after dark, as that’s when most crickets and katydids sing during the months of July and August. Because I was often in areas closed to the public or off trail, social distancing was not an issue.  I always had a mask available should I encounter any humans. Travel was reasonable, as all of my research sites were within an hour of home.

The prelude to the singing insect season began in late May and early June. I expected Spring Field Crickets in scattered locations but did not know whether I’d find Spring Trigs anywhere in my Geauga survey sites. 

During my 2012 survey in Frohring Meadows (southwest Geauga County) I remembered hearing one or two individual early-season mystery singers. I had no idea at the time who these crickets might be, as Spring Trigs simply weren’t even a consideration for NE Ohio. But Spring Trigs have been steadily, decisively moving north, so perhaps more pioneers were now entering Geauga County. 

 

This is the  NE Ohio snowbelt - the final frontier for southern and central Ohio cricket and katydid species that are moving north. (Map from Wikipedia)

 

When I initially checked Holbrook Hollows in mid-June, Spring Trigs were cheerfully singing in the warm afternoon sun! With each passing week, their numbers and locations increased. I ultimately found them at all four properties, though they were far more abundant at Holbrook Hollows in the southwest corner of Geauga.

Lisa Rainsong · Spring Trigs Holbrook Hollows

The Roesel’s Katydid is a non-native, though non-invasive, species I generally find in the northeast corner of my northeast Ohio region. They were introduced from Europe to the Montreal area in 1952 and subsequently moved west from their initial introduction to the Chicago area and now into Wisconsin and eastern Iowa, according to Singing Insects of North America. Where did I find them this year? As expected, in the northeast corner of Geauga County.

 

The end of June and first week of July presented the first major proclamation of singing insect season’s arrival: Gladiator Meadow Katydids at the end of June...

 

 and Broad-winged Bush Katydids a week later. 

The most impressive numbers were at a GPD permit-only property in the northeast corner of the county. I have never heard or seen so many of these two species anywhere. (You can read more about these Gladiators and Broad-winged Bush Katydids in my July post, Worried...or Impatient?)

By the third week of July, it was obvious this would be an outstanding season for one of my favorite katydid species: the Oblong-winged Katydid. Though more common some years than others, they were ridiculously abundant in all corners of Geauga County in 2020

Lisa Rainsong · Gladiator And Broad - Winged Then Oblong - Winged Katydids NE Geauga County

 

Late July and early August brought the annual explosion of tree cricket song in the meadows and woodland edges. Ground crickets and Fall Field Crickets were the continuo section providing the sonic foundation, and July’s katydids continued singing even as new sections of the insect ensemble joined them onstage. 

 

Striped Ground Cricket, Observatory Park. 

This little beauty is actually only about 1/2" in size.

 

I was immersed in sound and in moonlight, distant lightning, and even the aftermath of showers dripping from the leaves into the musical texture of my recordings.

 

 

Two-spotted Tree Cricket (male)  In the recording below, you'll hear first a Narrow-winged Tree Cricket, then a Two-spotted Tree Cricket. You may be able to hear rainwater dripping off the leaves of their river birch. Photo and recording from Chickagami Park. 

 

Lisa Rainsong · Narrow - Winged Tree Crickets, Two - Spotted Tree Cricket, And Dripping Leaves

 

Holbrook Hollows boardwalk, 8/2/20 (above). Curve-tailed Bush Katydids and Oblong-winged Katydids were singing, and this Curve-tailed pair was in the process of mating.

 

There was an obvious difference in insect song between the parks. Except for a few scattered Spring Trigs, I didn’t hear northbound crickets and katydids in the northeast corner of the county. When I would arrive at Observatory Park and the other nearby GPD property, the ensemble sounded so familiar. 

It was the sound of 2010 rather than 2020. 

Two Narrow-winged Tree Crickets mating while a third sings hopefully right above them. NE Geauga County. The recording below is his picture.

 

Lisa Rainsong · Narrow - Winged Tree Cricket Singing Above a Mating Pair

There were no Handsome Trigs, no Jumping Bush Crickets, no Round-tipped Coneheads…were they going to mature late up there, or had they yet to arrive at all?

August is always the most joyful month of my year. All the remaining crickets and katydids mature within that month until the full insect ensemble performs its orchestral tutti. Later August also brings glorious beauty to the meadows: goldenrods, asters, Joe-pye weed, ironweed, and various tall, yellow composites whose names I have yet to keep straight. 

 Observatory Park's "Planetary Meadow"

 

But August’s progression also brought the beginning of teaching all my daily music theory classes remotely from home. Late nights in the field were followed by early mornings teaching from a small room in our little bungalow. March and April felt like getting through a short-term crisis, but now I was teaching an entire semester of material online without the space and resources of my classroom. 

 

I still had several weeks remaining for the survey.

I tried to keep remote teaching, increasing COVID anxiety, and my fieldwork as separate as I could. At times, I succeeded in focusing on how fortunate I was to teach safely from home and also do research safely distanced in the field. But I couldn’t keep up with the work and still edit or even label my photos and field recordings. 

Academic calendars do not wait, nor does Nature.

In the southern part of the county, Jumping Bush Crickets and Handsome Trigs were abundant throughout Holbrook Hollows. What a contrast to the first little cluster of Handsome Trigs that began to colonize nearby Frohring Meadows just over ten years earlier! 

Female Handsome Trig, Frohring Meadows, SW Geauga County, 2012

 I’d only found Jumping Bush Crickets in one location on the border of Frohring in 2012, but now they were a significant part of the August and September ensembles both at Frohring and at Holbrook Hollows.

 

I found this Jumping Bush Cricket singing under some peeling sycamore bark in the Holbrook Hollows parking lot. I brought him home and set him up in a leaf and twig-filled mesh cage the suited him quite well. See "Crickets - and Katydids - in the House 2020"

Round-tipped Coneheads had already rapidly established their presence at Frohring even in 2012 and their penetrating buzzing was mixed into the sound texture of Holbrook Hollows as well. 

 

Handsome Trigs, Jumping Bush Cricket, and Round-tipped Conehead at Holbrook Hollows

Lisa Rainsong · Handsome Trigs Then Jumping Bush Cricket Round - Tipped Conehead Holbrook Hollows

Southwest Geauga County’s parks sounded like Portage and Summit Counties to their south 

 

While in lesser numbers at Chickagami in southeast Geauga, these species were not part of the soundscape in the northeast at all. Their songs were more common even along the lake shore in Lake County than inland. Lake Erie's waters keep those areas warmer in the late fall, so singing insect may have more time to complete their life cycle.

The northeast Geauga snowbelt still sounded like…the snowbelt.

Only later in the fall did I hear a few pockets of Handsome Trigs and a couple of  Jumping Bush Crickets and Round-tipped Coneheads. Driving from Holbrook Hollows to Observatory Park sounded as if I’d gone back ten years in time.

 

 Observatory Park's Planetary Meadow in late September.

Time was short now, as nights were getting too cold for insect song. I still needed to record the crickets whose species I could only determine by analysis of their songs: the Forbes’s Tree Crickets and if present, the look-alike Black-horned Tree Crickets. I’d recorded about 30 of them at Observatory Park the previous year and now hoped for a reasonable sampling from Holbrook Hollows. Wetland restoration work was already beginning at the park property near Observatory, but maybe I could still manage to make some recordings there as well. 

 

He was singing at Holbrook Hollows, but was he a Forbes's Tree Cricket,, or a Black-horned Tree Cricket? It's not possible to tell without a song analysis by temperature and wing strokes per second.

 

Field recordings from Holbrook necessitated bushwhacking through very dense, tall goldenrod mixed with blackberry, scattered saplings, and shrubs such as red osier dogwood on a slope dropping down toward a wetland. My additional Holbrook site was in a power line corridor that also featured blackberry and tall goldenrod.

I managed to safely negotiate both locations and even brought home two crickets I thought sounded a little different from each other. In addition, I also brought home two more crickets from the northeast Geauga property– a quick catch before rain threatened to drench my recording equipment.

Once I could record and analyze their songs from home, I confirmed that I had a Forbes’s and a Black-horned Tree Cricket from each of those two sites. Both species are definitely present in northeast and southwest Geauga County. 

Black-horned Tree Cricket in the recording below. He is followed by a Forbes's Tree Cricket, and you may also hear a Black-legged Meadow Katydid in the background

Lisa Rainsong · Black - Horned Tree Cricket then Forbes's Tree Cricket at same temperature

A cold spell in September greatly diminished singing insect numbers a little earlier than I would have expected, and by early October I had to acknowledge that the survey was essentially over.

As I do every year, I spent the next month close to Lake Erie’s relatively warm waters that delay a singing insect-killing freeze near the lakeshore. It was the annual postlude that concluded with just the singing insects I had been able to catch and bring home to finish their final performances next to the south windows of the dining room by day and near the heat vents at night. I listened to them every afternoon and evening as I graded assignments and prepared exams. 

Finally in late November and December I could edit the photos and field recordings that documented not only the singing insects but everything I’d seen, heard, and absorbed in those four months. As in previous years, I came to love the places I studied in such detail and so deeply appreciated what they revealed, shared, and taught me. This year, they also kept me safe, emotionally nourished, and grounded as only nature can.

 

 

 

 If you’d like to read my final illustrated report, it will be available in the future on my website (https:listeninginnature.com)

In addition, I'll be doing a presentation on my 2020 research for the Geauga Park District that will be free and open to the public (probably via Zoom), and I’ll announce the date once it’s been scheduled. It should also appear on the GPD website under "Programs and Events."

If COVID-19 permits, I also expect to co-lead a singing insect hike at one of the survey sites in August. 

You can reach me by email at lisa.rainsong@listeninginnature.com

"Isn't It Too Early for Crickets?"

I opened my last blog post with the observation that people sometimes aren't sure if they’re listening to birds or crickets when they’re actually hearing Gray Treefrogs. This post begins with another question I was asked several times this spring by people who were aware that they were hearing a cricket. They also knew that they typically hear cricket song beginning in later July here in NE Ohio.

Except for the chirping of Spring Field Crickets, this would seem true. 

However, I’ve observed an increasing exception, especially this year. 

Let’s start where we left off in the last blog post. Imagine we’re back at the pond at the Ross County Park District’s Buzzard’s Roost Nature Preserve in Chillicothe. Remember those Cope’s Gray Treefrogs along with their Green Frog and Bullfrog chorus members? Here’s a reminder…but this time, they’re joined by today’s featured soloist. He’s right in the foreground, but listeners will often focus on the frogs and not immediately notice the cricket. 

It’s June 24^th. Just who IS this? 

Spring Trigs (Anaxipha vernalis) are tiny “sword-tailed” crickets whose name comes from their subfamily name: Trigonidiinae. We commonly hear Say’s Trigs and Handsome Trigs in August and September, but Spring Trigs have been far more common in the southern two thirds of the state. In NE Ohio, it’s typical to hear a few here and there, as with this individual singing at the Medina County Park District’s Allardale Park near the Summit County border. (The temperature was warmer than in the first recording, so the pitch of this song is higher. Remember: cooler temperature = lower and slower songs and warmer = higher and faster.)

Imagine how surprised I was to hear this sound at Mentor Lagoons practically on the Lake Erie shore in Lake County!

The temperature was quite warm that afternoon, and the songs were as high in pitch as I ever hear them. They were in a small, south-facing meadow/prairie next to Mentor Marsh, which is north of the range map for this species. 

           (Range Map from Singing Insects of North America)

It wasn’t just a few trigs, either – the meadow was full of them!

I’ve been trying for a few years now to catch one for confirmation of this species’ presence. I thought it would be easy to do so with this many singing trigs. Of course, I was wrong.

The vegetation was already quite tall from the generous amount of rain we’ve had this year. Although trigs aren’t ground crickets, they certainly don't sing near the top of the grasses and wildflowers, either. Also, all our trig species are no larger than 1/4"-1/3” in size.

And can they ever jump! A trig can disappear faster than my eyes and brain can register the movement, traveling far enough to eliminate any hope of ever seeing that individual again.

I continued recording while I searched for them, and I began to notice that there were different song lengths. 

Did different crickets have specific song patterns, or did each individual cricket have more than one song length in his repertoire? Were the variations I heard triggered by conflict with other males or courtship with a female? If I could just catch one and take him home for a while, maybe I could learn more.

I had better luck locating a few females, as they were sitting in slightly more visible locations on blades of grass. 

When I actually saw a male, his athletic ability resulted in my missing with pathetic clumsiness.

Until this one.

And look at his wings! His fore wings, which are the ones he raises for singing, are the expected length. His hind wings, however, are much longer than those of other males I’d briefly encountered. He was macropterous rather than micropterous: a long-winged form who could fly. I’ve seen long-winged forms of Striped Ground Crickets, Roesels Katydids, and some of the meadow katydids, and here was a long-winged trig.

Even with his long wings, this one did not elude me. He was decisively transferred into in a mesh-walled singing cage and was on his way back to Cleveland Heights for a visit. 

As I learned with Handsome Trigs, these tiny crickets have to be kept in a container with mesh walls and ceiling because they can climb through the holes of a terrarium screen or out of the little holes along the handles of a cricket carrier. I wanted him to feel comfortable enough to sing, though, so I put the singing case inside a terrarium full of grass as high as the cage. 

He sang that first night and each night thereafter, producing songs of variable lengths like those I’d heard in the meadow. 


His repertoire also included the same series of five-second songs that I’d heard at Mentor Lagoons and elsewhere: Approximately five seconds, pause, five seconds, pause…you’ll see it on the sonogram below as you listen.

An additional pattern I noticed in the field and subsequently in the house was a short, almost stuttering start to a longer song. I’ve observed something similar in Carolina Ground Crickets when they first begin singing in the evening and also in Black-horned and Forbes’s Tree Crickets. It’s as if they’re warming up before the actual  performance  begins.

Here's a recording that begins with a song from the field immediately followed by one I recorded at home. (Remember that the difference in pitch is the result of the how warm the cricket was at the time.) The sonogram shows part of this composite recording. 

When these crickets are not singing a series of shorter songs, their extended songs can continue for 60 seconds and longer. In the field, various individuals may simultaneously sing different length songs, creating an overlapping texture similar to choral musicians discreetly breathing so it sounds as if no one has to breathe at all.

My long-winged male sang all the variants I’d heard in the field. I put the terrarium upstairs at night and kept my recording equipment nearby so I’d be ready to document his repertoire when he felt it was dark and peaceful enough to begin. We loved having him here, but I eventually took him back to his meadow. He vanished into the grasses within five seconds. 

Although their songs sound similar to the Say’s Trigs (Anaxipha exigua) who will begin singing at the end of July, their pitch is lower. Say’s Trigs may often sing at 7000-8000 Hz, but Spring Trigs sing between 4500-6000 Hz. The slightly lower pitch sounds more musical to human ears. 

Here’s a Say’s Trig singing in early September and a photo of one as well.

    (If my long-winged male Spring Trig had typical hind wings,

 they would look like the wings you see -  and don't see - on this Say's Trig)

The two species look very similar, though Say's Trigs have a pattern of dark lines on their faces. Spring Trigs are a little darker reddish-brown overall and have very dark "knees." Females are lighter than males.  

Season is the best way to separate them, and at least in NE Ohio, there's also a certain degree of habitat differenc.

Spring Trigs are residents of meadows and along habitat edges bordered by meadow vegetation. They sing from grasses and meadow plants, but I haven't heard them singing from shrubs or around wetlands.

Although Say's Trigs can be found in meadows, I can count on locating them near wetlands. They are partial to shrubs and vines, and I periodically find them sitting on poison ivy leaves. They especially love buttonbushes, and that's the first place I check for them.

I don’t know how much longer we’ll hear the last Spring Trigs, as it’s now July 15^th.  Say’s Trigs are just a couple weeks away from a season of song shared with the many other crickets and katydids who be maturing soon. Spring Trigs often sing alone, but listen to the sound of early August in this recording of a Say’s Trig soloist in the foreground and Snowy Tree Crickets in the background at Lake Erie Bluffs. 
 

       (Notice that this Say's Trig is sitting on a broad leaf rather than a blade of grass. This is typical)

I’m so thankful to have had the chance to get to know Spring Trigs this year and to hear their silvery songs for weeks when it was “too early” for crickets. Will they continue to become increasingly common up here in NE Ohio? I think you probably know the answer.