Field Station Exploration

                           Field Station Exploration

 

 

  Hiram College field station, Portage County, NE Ohio

 

The ground is snow-covered now and there's a Lake Effect Snow Warning here in NE Ohio. My last surviving Broad-winged Tree Cricket finally passed away in December but my ancient Black-legged Meadow Katydid is still singing occasionally in his spacious mesh butterfly cage in the dining room. (If you read my preceding post, "The Prodigal Katydid," this katydid was the featured character in the story.) He no longer climbs up high in his cage, but he has a very nice array of foods arranged along its floor.

                                                                         

     Black-legged Meadow Katydid on 1-3-25.  On the left is his grape half, on the right are                hydration cubes, and seeds from his bulrush seed heads are on the floor of his cage.
                         

Although we have the inevitable traveling crowd of House Sparrows here at the moment, I’m focusing on all the other birds in our natural backyard and at our feeders. Still, I deeply miss my summer and early autumn afternoons and nights in the meadows, marsh edges, and shrubby woodland borders that are over half a year away.

 

Summer feels so distant now.

 

 

During that past 15 years that I've studied singing insects throughout NE Ohio, I’ve spent more time in Geauga County than anywhere else in NE Ohio and have also done surveys in Lake, Summit, Stark, Lorain, Medina, and Cuyahoga Counties. 

                                       

                                                           (Wikitravel.org)

I had visited three of the Portage County parks a number of years ago, but hadn't spent as much time in that county as I thought would be helpful to regionally connect Geauga to Portage to Summit.

But where would I be able to spend considerable time in this rural county?

Perhaps the 550-acre Hiram College Field Station in Portage County might be interested in my survey work. I didn’t know anyone there except their Education and Outreach Director, Mike Sustin, whom I’d previously met at other regional park districts. He cheerfully became my Hiram Field Station contact person. Field Station director Dr. Michael Benedict and the staff also welcomed me.

I couldn’t possibly explore the entire property in one summer and needed to target the areas that seemed most likely to have substantial numbers and diversity of singing insects. I also needed to consider what felt safe to explore during my typical nighttime forays.

There were shrubby meadows, woodlands and a large prairie within walking distance of where I parked my car. I would need to keep the trail options organized in my head, as it would be easy to become confused in the dark. 

 

              

 

Fortunately, Wendy (my wife) accompanied me first by day, then on my initial night exploration as I learned the trails. I found some landmarks – the occasional signs, the hanging grapevine dangling above the trail, an opening in the tree canopy…

As you probably know by now, I am drawn to meadows and prairies. They are the most productive places to search for crickets and katydids, and I cherish the openness and all that sky above me – especially at night.

Park district land managers are turning former farm fields into meadows and even prairies of native grasses.  Mike Sustin introduced me to Hils Vista, which is the prairie-in-progress at the Hiram Field Station. (It is named after professor of biology and former Field station director Matthew Hils. You can read more about the field station's Grassland Program here.)

 

The prairie was filled with big bluestem and other prairie grasses instead of the usual dense goldenrod meadows I love and know so well. It was gorgeous! 

Who might I find there?

 

 

As I walked farther down the long hill, meadow vegetation like goldenrod, ironweed, and Joe-pye weed began to dominate closer the bottom of the trail near Silver Creek.  Could I have both prairie grasses up higher on the hill and meadow vegetation farther down – and perhaps changes in the Orthopteran species along the extensive trail? Excellent!

 

July in NE Ohio is the time to look and listen for early katydids, with the first tree crickets joining them as the month progresses. The prairie grasses were perfect for the first Sword-bearing Coneheads in July.

 

 

                                 Sword-bearing Coneheads at the Hiram Field Station

 

Lisa Rainsong · Sword-bearing Conehead at the Hiram Field Station 2024

 

I have been concerned in recent years about lower numbers than expected of Broad-winged Bush Katydids and even our previously abundant Curve-tailed Bush Katydids. Would I find them out here?  

Yes! The Broad-winged Bush Katydids were right on time, followed shortly thereafter by the Curve-tailed Bush Katydids. The  numbers weren't  high, but I was very glad - and relieved - that they were present.

 

                                Broad-winged Bush Katydid male, Hils Vista 

          Curve-tailed Bush Katydid in the prairie grasses - not where I typically see them

NE Ohio’s widespread look-alike/sound-alike Black-horned Tree Crickets and Forbes’s Tree Crickets prefer goldenrod, but this was a large meadow filled with native prairie grasses. I'd look for them elsewhere on the property.

 

 

However, I often find Four-spotted Tree Crickets in tall grasses, and Hils Vista was apparently a very attractive habitat for them.  

 By the third week of July, I heard their songs scattered along the trails and saw them mating.

    

          Four-spotted Tree Crickets mating (above) and a recently-mated female, Hils Vista.

    

                                         

Lisa Rainsong · Four - Spotted Tree Cricket and Sword - Bearing Conehead Hiram 7 - 31 - 24

Broad-winged Tree Crickets mature a little later, and they, too, were in the prairie grasses and forbs. This is not where I usually find them in my region; blackberry and goldenrod are where I expect to hear Broad-winged Tree Crickets, and they are typically very well hidden in the dense vegetation. 

 

                                             

                                                Broad-winged Tree Cricket singing                                  

 

                                           

Lisa Rainsong · Broad-winged Tree Cricket singing in Hiram goldenrod

Lisa Rainsong · Broad-winged Tree Cricket singing in Hiram Goldenrod

 

The songs of the Broad-winged Tree Crickets were mixed with those of the Four-spotted Tree Crickets, and the pairing of these two distinct songs caught my attention. It sounded familiar, but not from the dense goldenrod/blackberry meadows and thickets of Geauga and Lake Counties where Broad-winged Tree Crickets are likely to be singing with Black-horned Tree Crickets in  areas with shrubs or Forbes's Tree Crickets in the goldenrod.

Instead, the Broad-winged Tree Crickets and Four-spotted Tree Crickets had been singing together in a former agricultural field in Stark County and also in fields and edges in southern Ohio. Here, they were singing together in a Portage County prairie. Sometimes, songs define places for me rather than the other way around.

There were singers on the ground level as well.

Although easy to overlook, Fall Field Crickets and our three most common ground cricket species (Allard’s, Striped, and Carolina) were present almost everywhere. 

 

                          

       Fall Field Cricket female. The males are the singers and the females lay the eggs.   

    

Lisa Rainsong · Fall Field Cricket at Hiram Field Station 7-28-24

Tiny Spring Trigs in the meadow vegetation were followed by Say's Trigs and Handsome Trigs in meadows and shrubby edges

                                                           

                 

 Say's Trig - only about 1/4" in size 

Breakneck Creek Preserve, Portage County 

 

 

Lisa Rainsong · Say's Trig

                                       

August brought the penetrating songs of another conehead species: the Round-tipped Conehead. 

                          Round-tipped Coneheads, Hils Vista, Hiram field station

             

          Round-tipped Coneheads can be green or brown. 

         The individual above was one of the brown Round-tipped Coneheads at the field station.

 
                                            

Lisa Rainsong · Round - Tipped Conehead2

I’ve documented Round-tipped Coneheads as they've moved north into my region from southern Ohio, and they are now are well-established all the way up to Lake Erie.

Round-tipped Coneheads mature in mid or even late August,and mid-August is when I began hearing adult males singing in the prairie grasses of Hils Vista.

 

But there are still more areas I haven’t even visited yet. Who knows which species will be singing there?

The Hiram Field Station has been a delightful discovery! I’d like to return there again this summer to see – and hear – if there are any additional species I might have missed or that simply were not present last year. In addition, this past summer was very dry, and I don’t know to what extent this may have affected last year's - and next year's - numbers and diversity.

There’s only one way to find out…

 

                           Lisa Rainsong · Narrow-winged Tree Cricket and others Hiram Field Station 8-5-24

Lisa Rainsong · Narrow-winged Tree Cricket and others Hiram Field Station 8-5-24

"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.