Wait!.. Do Crickets Migrate?
Monday, June 27th, 2022 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudioMy 36" balloons were supposed to arrive today, but have been delayed. Maybe tomorrow or Wednesday, says Amazon.
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With over a month to go before the crickets get here, I've been trying to figure out exactly why it always takes until August... no matter what the weather's been like in the spring and early summer.
Doesn't matter if it's been hot and dry, cool and rainy, or any mix between. It's always August 1st, for the crickets... in my neighborhood.
It's hard to find information online about crickets, because you either turn up anti-cricket propaganda from pest control companies... or shit about the English sport, cricket!
One headline I turned up, actually said with a straight face, "IS YOUR LAWN INFESTED WITH CRICKETS?"
Well, I don't know!... is the sky infested with birds?.. Are the woods infested with trees?
Then you have cricket breeders, who are raising them to be fed to reptilian pets... the bastards!
----<>----
I've always assumed that the crickets in my yard just laid eggs and those eggs took twelve months to hatch.
But apparently, cricket eggs hatch in like twelve DAYS, as long as it's over 65F.
That part makes sense, because you do hear more younger crickets, into October and November, if it stays relatively warm. And you can tell, because younger ones are smaller, and higher pitched... which is cute!
So... if eggs laid right before winter can survive the winter... they should hatch immediately in April or May!
And since that's never what happens...
The only conclusion is... that the crickets simply migrate into my area every year, from warmer places, and it takes until August for that migration to reach my back yard!
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In this theory, Crickets are just always somewhere on the planet... singing, mating, and hatching out of eggs every twelve days.
But they have two inscentives to wander in search of new territory.
1) It's getting noisy here. I'm going out to the fringe of all this where I can be heard better.
2) It's getting chilly here. I'm going where it's a bit warmer.
And with those two inputs, you have them slowly moving into the southern hemisphere, from October through March... then slowly moving back into the northern hemisphere, from April through September... back and forth forever!
There would also be westward and eastward spread, from the oceanic coastlines, which are always warmer, into the continental interiors.
So, it just takes until August for that migration to bring them up to 41.7 degrees north latitude, and 88.3 west longitude... where I'm waiting for them.
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This would invalidate my alternating brood theory.
If migration theory is right, then every winter, all local eggs just die.
Every August simply brings the 200th great grandchildren of the ones from last year.
How many field crickets are in my yard, and how they sing, would then be down to local environmental factors... temperature... rain... grass height... acoustical advantage.
----<>----
Hard to say if lighting has any impact.
My gut feeling, is that bush crickets sing louder in the darkest dark shadows of overgrown foliage... and that field crickets prefer a little moonlight... or lamplight.
I'll be able to test that this year.
But one thing's for sure... I'm gonna go crazy waiting another whole month's wait, if I don't find something else to focus on.
°¦}
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
With over a month to go before the crickets get here, I've been trying to figure out exactly why it always takes until August... no matter what the weather's been like in the spring and early summer.
Doesn't matter if it's been hot and dry, cool and rainy, or any mix between. It's always August 1st, for the crickets... in my neighborhood.
It's hard to find information online about crickets, because you either turn up anti-cricket propaganda from pest control companies... or shit about the English sport, cricket!
One headline I turned up, actually said with a straight face, "IS YOUR LAWN INFESTED WITH CRICKETS?"
Well, I don't know!... is the sky infested with birds?.. Are the woods infested with trees?
Then you have cricket breeders, who are raising them to be fed to reptilian pets... the bastards!
I've always assumed that the crickets in my yard just laid eggs and those eggs took twelve months to hatch.
But apparently, cricket eggs hatch in like twelve DAYS, as long as it's over 65F.
That part makes sense, because you do hear more younger crickets, into October and November, if it stays relatively warm. And you can tell, because younger ones are smaller, and higher pitched... which is cute!
So... if eggs laid right before winter can survive the winter... they should hatch immediately in April or May!
And since that's never what happens...
The only conclusion is... that the crickets simply migrate into my area every year, from warmer places, and it takes until August for that migration to reach my back yard!
In this theory, Crickets are just always somewhere on the planet... singing, mating, and hatching out of eggs every twelve days.
But they have two inscentives to wander in search of new territory.
1) It's getting noisy here. I'm going out to the fringe of all this where I can be heard better.
2) It's getting chilly here. I'm going where it's a bit warmer.
And with those two inputs, you have them slowly moving into the southern hemisphere, from October through March... then slowly moving back into the northern hemisphere, from April through September... back and forth forever!
There would also be westward and eastward spread, from the oceanic coastlines, which are always warmer, into the continental interiors.
So, it just takes until August for that migration to bring them up to 41.7 degrees north latitude, and 88.3 west longitude... where I'm waiting for them.
This would invalidate my alternating brood theory.
If migration theory is right, then every winter, all local eggs just die.
Every August simply brings the 200th great grandchildren of the ones from last year.
How many field crickets are in my yard, and how they sing, would then be down to local environmental factors... temperature... rain... grass height... acoustical advantage.
Hard to say if lighting has any impact.
My gut feeling, is that bush crickets sing louder in the darkest dark shadows of overgrown foliage... and that field crickets prefer a little moonlight... or lamplight.
I'll be able to test that this year.
But one thing's for sure... I'm gonna go crazy waiting another whole month's wait, if I don't find something else to focus on.
°¦}
