Happy Lugh's Day!
Monday, August 1st, 2022 11:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudioWell, it's Lugh's Day, August 1st!
And, just as I had to disabuse myself, back in July, of the idea that cicadas don't get going until August 1st (because they get going in early July) I now must finally disabuse myself of the conviction that crickets are in full swing by August 1st... because they're not.
Still, it is true, that over just the past three nights, the block interior (the back yards) have gone from no field crickets to... tonight... a good deal of nymphs, and now several adults.
And meanwhile, out on the street, it's sounding very close to peak orchestra... mostly adults, good coverage, and a surprising number of mole crickets to be heard out there too!
So, it's safe to say that by August 1st... a casual listener, walking from the front door, to the car, after dark... would conclude that the crickets are indeed, in full swing!
And that change has happened fairly quickly! It didn't sound like this even three and four nights ago. So... it does seem like my boom is taking place... but it's not an overnight boom. It's more like an over week boom?
------------{=0=}------------
I finally checked, and in 2018 I didn't do the first recording until the 11th. In 2020 it was the 13th. In 2021, it was the 19th, but only because it took me that long to get a good dusk recording leading into the crickets.
So, it's definitely not until next week that the bands gonna be fully grown, and fully populating the back yards.
As for leaf tappers, past recordings show them appearing between the 11th, and the 17th. So I may hear the first few next week, but they probably won't really be up to speed until the third week of August.
------------{=0=}------------
So, I've got a bit of time yet before the first hour-long, noctournal snoozefest tracks start recording.
But that means I need to start immediately, recoring at sundown, to get 2022's, Dusk track. I have to get into the practice of recording every single day at sundown, because it can take a lot of tries to get a good one.
Rainy days, there won't be any cicadas.
Sunny days, there will often be people running mowers, weed wackers, or leaf blowers at sundown. Dogs tend to be on a hair trigger at sundown, because of kids, off school, screaming as they play. Dusk is a tricky bitch to get recorded, with just the cicadas and nothing too jarring in the mix!
I've got a good week and a half to get a dusk recording before the noctournal orchestra is ready for prime time. So hopefully I can do that, and whatever the crickets are doing on that dusk recording will follow logically to what they're doing on track two of the playlist.
------------{=0=}------------
Also, while I still have a bit of time, I'm tweaking my last minute attempts to lure in the field crickets to my back yard.
Above, is that SCOP rock garden, in the daylight. And here's a second angle on it...
I'm really hoping this nice little oasis of rocky layers will get a bunch of the field crickets now in exile from the street parkings, to adopt it as thier new home... the place where they hang out during the day, to stay out of the sun and sleep tight, safe from birds.
But I went a step further today and created a second oasis, further out in the yard...
This is the site of an old fire pit, that I always have to avoid with the mower. I had a bin full of old broken bricks I'd collected last year in a different spot, so I filled the old pit with the broken bricks.
That mason block at the head was actually my first draft idea, before the SCOP rocks, yesterday, and today I thought it looks too much like a head stone, so I picked it up to take it back to the house, and a cricket hopped out from beneath it!.. so I put it back.
Not the same compact layers as in the scop oasis, but I piled these klunkier bricks three deep in this spot to leave lots of nooks.
Inside the bin I took these from, a whole community of spiders, centipedes, rolly-pollies, and more had really fallen in love with the pile of broken bricks, so... while they were all sadly evicted today... I'm hoping the crickets will find these digs just as appealing.
This old fire pit does happen to sit exactly in the shadow of the SCOP at night, by the light of the back yard lamp. But I don't think that will matter.
I think crickets shelter in spots like this during the day, and then at night, when it's time to go find a mate, they radiate out into the greater lawn at large.
That's the theory at least.
I'm definitely going on a bunch of hunches this year... from the flood lamp, to letting the grass stay taller, and allowing some shrubbery... to these rock oases... all in the hopes that it'll mean more field crickets!
And I do have a basket for the S8 ready, to hover it over the grass, to get that field cricket signal louder than the surrounding bush crickets... which should work well, if I have a good population of lively field crickets.
Months worth of hunches... about to get tested by reality now that August is here!
°¦}
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
And, just as I had to disabuse myself, back in July, of the idea that cicadas don't get going until August 1st (because they get going in early July) I now must finally disabuse myself of the conviction that crickets are in full swing by August 1st... because they're not.
Still, it is true, that over just the past three nights, the block interior (the back yards) have gone from no field crickets to... tonight... a good deal of nymphs, and now several adults.
And meanwhile, out on the street, it's sounding very close to peak orchestra... mostly adults, good coverage, and a surprising number of mole crickets to be heard out there too!
So, it's safe to say that by August 1st... a casual listener, walking from the front door, to the car, after dark... would conclude that the crickets are indeed, in full swing!
And that change has happened fairly quickly! It didn't sound like this even three and four nights ago. So... it does seem like my boom is taking place... but it's not an overnight boom. It's more like an over week boom?
I finally checked, and in 2018 I didn't do the first recording until the 11th. In 2020 it was the 13th. In 2021, it was the 19th, but only because it took me that long to get a good dusk recording leading into the crickets.
So, it's definitely not until next week that the bands gonna be fully grown, and fully populating the back yards.
As for leaf tappers, past recordings show them appearing between the 11th, and the 17th. So I may hear the first few next week, but they probably won't really be up to speed until the third week of August.
So, I've got a bit of time yet before the first hour-long, noctournal snoozefest tracks start recording.
But that means I need to start immediately, recoring at sundown, to get 2022's, Dusk track. I have to get into the practice of recording every single day at sundown, because it can take a lot of tries to get a good one.
Rainy days, there won't be any cicadas.
Sunny days, there will often be people running mowers, weed wackers, or leaf blowers at sundown. Dogs tend to be on a hair trigger at sundown, because of kids, off school, screaming as they play. Dusk is a tricky bitch to get recorded, with just the cicadas and nothing too jarring in the mix!
I've got a good week and a half to get a dusk recording before the noctournal orchestra is ready for prime time. So hopefully I can do that, and whatever the crickets are doing on that dusk recording will follow logically to what they're doing on track two of the playlist.
Also, while I still have a bit of time, I'm tweaking my last minute attempts to lure in the field crickets to my back yard.
Above, is that SCOP rock garden, in the daylight. And here's a second angle on it...
I'm really hoping this nice little oasis of rocky layers will get a bunch of the field crickets now in exile from the street parkings, to adopt it as thier new home... the place where they hang out during the day, to stay out of the sun and sleep tight, safe from birds.
But I went a step further today and created a second oasis, further out in the yard...
This is the site of an old fire pit, that I always have to avoid with the mower. I had a bin full of old broken bricks I'd collected last year in a different spot, so I filled the old pit with the broken bricks.
That mason block at the head was actually my first draft idea, before the SCOP rocks, yesterday, and today I thought it looks too much like a head stone, so I picked it up to take it back to the house, and a cricket hopped out from beneath it!.. so I put it back.
Not the same compact layers as in the scop oasis, but I piled these klunkier bricks three deep in this spot to leave lots of nooks.
Inside the bin I took these from, a whole community of spiders, centipedes, rolly-pollies, and more had really fallen in love with the pile of broken bricks, so... while they were all sadly evicted today... I'm hoping the crickets will find these digs just as appealing.
This old fire pit does happen to sit exactly in the shadow of the SCOP at night, by the light of the back yard lamp. But I don't think that will matter.
I think crickets shelter in spots like this during the day, and then at night, when it's time to go find a mate, they radiate out into the greater lawn at large.
That's the theory at least.
I'm definitely going on a bunch of hunches this year... from the flood lamp, to letting the grass stay taller, and allowing some shrubbery... to these rock oases... all in the hopes that it'll mean more field crickets!
And I do have a basket for the S8 ready, to hover it over the grass, to get that field cricket signal louder than the surrounding bush crickets... which should work well, if I have a good population of lively field crickets.
Months worth of hunches... about to get tested by reality now that August is here!
°¦}
