Summer Cricket Songs

By Iain MacLeod on Friday, August 11, 2006.

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Like birds or frogs, different species of crickets can be identified by their songs. We listen to the sounds of three of New Hampshire's more common crickets.

Hi. This is Iain Macleod of New Hampshire Audubon, bringing you Something Wild.

Crickets get their name from the high-pitched chirp that's produced when the male rubs his front wings together to attract a female.

Like birds or frogs, different species of crickets can be identified by their songs. Here are three of the common crickets you are likely to hear in New Hampshire:

(cricket sounds)

The Northern mole cricket lives in grassy, moist areas, usually close to swamps, marshes and wet meadows. These strange-looking creatures have large, mole-like front feet for digging through roots. Listen for them calling from the entrances of their burrows. You're unlikely to see them.

(cricket sounds)

Field crickets are the common crickets that we hear singing from late spring until frost. These plump, dark brown insects may become household pests in late summer and early fall. That's when they move out of fields and into buildings. Their song is usually an uneven series of chirps:

(cricket sounds)

Nathaniel Hawthorne once said of the song of the snowy tree cricket, "If moonlight could be heard, it would sound just like that." These crickets are small and light green, and have large, clear wings that lie flat on their backs. Listen for them in trees, shrubs and tall weeds. They are sometimes called thermometer crickets because their chirps can be used to approximate the temperature. Just count the number of chirps you hear in thirteen seconds, then add forty to get the temperature. For example if you hear thirty chirps in thirteen seconds, you'll come up with seventy degrees.

(cricket sounds)

All of these beautiful songsters can be harmed by lawn and garden pesticides. By using organic gardening techniques, you can help keep the summer music in the air.

Something Wild is a joint production of New Hampshire Audubon, New Hampshire Public Radio, and the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. For Something Wild, I'm Iain Macleod.