June 24: Questionable beetle

Someone brought a beetle by the Land Trust office today to make sure it wasn't an Asian Long-horned Beetle, an introduced invasive tree borer that has been very destructive in states south of here.

Bug trapped in a jar--
not an evil invasive,
so we set it free.

July 28: Katydid

We left the porch light on when we went out last night, and upon our return, discovered dozens of  moths, flies, and other winged creatures flitting around our front door. Among them, clinging to the screen, was one leaf-green katydid, a beautiful, graceful insect. We tried to catch it so that I could get a closer look, but it jumped away into the jungle of lilies alongside the porch. The voice of the katydid is a familiar part of the summer twilight insect chorus--I've definitely heard many more than I've seen. 

Here's a katydid that looks very similar to last night's visitor, albeit a species from India pretending to be a leaf:

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons (Vishalsh521)

I remember feeling quite envious when my best friend Katy, who lived across the street from me when I was five, told me that there was an insect named after her--the katydid--which even sang her name. But then I realized it was OK because one of my mother's childhood nicknames for me was Cricket, so I had an "insect name" too. Now I learn, while looking for a photo of a katydid, that katydids, though they look a lot like grasshoppers, are most closely related to crickets and are called bush crickets in Great Britain. If only I'd known that at age five; it might have sparked a career in entomology. (I also learned that katydid species as a group are referred to as tettigoniids. Try to use that word in a sentence today!)

Under the porch light

green katydid shines brightly

amid dusty moths.

April 10: Not snow

On Sunday we watched actual snow flakes falling. This evening it just looks like it's snowing: a mass of white insects has hatched in the back yard. A swirling swarm of them fills the air space between the house and river. As the last rays of the sun send a column of light through the yard, illuminating the flies, the sheer magnitude of the hatch becomes visible. Shifting my focus, I realize the little gnats are also stuck all over my screen window. They're almost tiny enough--my husband estimates them to be about a #26 fly--to fit through the holes in the screen.

It's too chilly to be hanging out in the back yard anyway, so I can enjoy the sheer visual marvel of this insect flash mob, as well as appreciate the return of non-biting insects in numbers sufficient to feed returning songbirds and trout down in the river. The phoebe singing outside my office window this morning, for example, will be grateful for this flying feast.

Flies swirling like snow
after all snow has melted--
air's never empty.

September 15: Singing for our supper

As I lay in bed this morning, not quite ready to get up, enjoying the hum of the crickets in the dawn, I was reminded of an article I read in a recent issue of "The New Yorker"about eating insects. Insects will need to become more culturally acceptable in this country as a source of protein, was the premise, as a renewable resource that doesn't add to greenhouse gases or take up too much space. Crickets were cited as a common delicacy in some cultures.

So I'm listening to the crickets wondering if their song would sound different to me if, after I got out of bed, I was planning to get up and have some for breakfast. Of course, the lowing of cows does't make me hungry for a steak or milk. But I also don't go out and harvest a cow myself. I'm not likely to start eating crickets anytime soon. For now I'm content to hear their song as the soothing backdrop to a misty morning on the river. But it made me think.

Mmm. Like Pavlov's dog
my lips smack at cricket's song,
my singing breakfast.