Silence

   One of the strange things that happened when we returned from our trip was the silence.  As the saying goes, it was deafening.  Where are the birds, my wife asked?  She places feeders up throughout the front and back yards and none had been touched (they are all usually empty within a day or two); even my beloved (hated by most) magpies, of which there are several dozen or more, were nowhere to be seen.  The doves, quail, finches and sparrows, all usually so plentiful that they're considered urban pests in many areas, were also gone.  My first thought was that something weather-wise was coming; in coastal towns or islands many animals are known to move to higher ground well ahead of a tsunami, perhaps feeling the low vibration cast by the earth.  But we were far inland, as in several states inland, so no threat there.  But something was amiss.  Scanning the sky one could watch for hours and not see or hear a bird.  So we asked a few neighbors and they replied that now that we had brought it to their attention they hadn't seen any birds for a few days.  The test would be at night.

   When nightfall came I listened.  Before we left for our trip the crickets were in full mating chorus (only males make the distinctive mating call, rubbing their top wing against their bottom wing for the unmistakable sound).  And although substantially diminished, a few crickets did announce their presence.  It was a reassuring sound, as if discovering that life still existed or at least the life that we were accustomed to around our home.  A few more days went by and then two doves appeared, then a single magpie, then a solo hawk.  But now after a few weeks, they have been the only stragglers we've seen.  Even the crickets have now decided to leave, with one snowy tree cricket plopping onto the deck railing as if to give me a final glimpse.   I know and knew very little about crickets, other than they're talked about as a protein source in many circles (cricket "flour" is already growing popularity due to its high protein content); that and that pet stores will often carry crickets for supplying those customers who have captive reptiles as pets.  But other than that, I paid little attention to their goings on other than always looking forward to hearing the orchestral antics which regularly arrive at the end of summer.

   So I peeked into a few sources.  Here's this from the Library of Congress page: The male cricket rubs a scraper (a sharp ridge on his wing) against a series of wrinkles, or "files", on the other wing.  The tone of the chirping depends upon the distance between the wrinkles.  Or this from ThoughtCo on why crickets stop chirping as we approach: Crickets do not have ears like we do.  Instead, they have a pair of tympanal organs on their forewings (tegmina), which vibrate in response to vibrating air molecules (sound to humans), in the surrounding air.  A special receptor called the chordotonal organ translates the vibration from the tympanal organ into a nerve impulse, which reaches the cricket's brain...Usually, in everyday life, humans will hear something first, but crickets will always feel it.  Those of you who have found a single cricket in your home know exactly what I'm talking about for you wonder how can one tiny cricket make so loud a sound?

   Then I decided to look further, peeking at the Wikipedia page and finding that its section on crickets was quite extensive.  Here are a few tidbits.  On those noise-producing wings (wait, can you even see any wings in my pictures) -- most crickets have two sets, front and back (unlike bees with a top wing overlaying a bottom wing), but then some crickets have no wings...some have flown across oceans while others are considered rather clumsy fliers.  Not so astonishing since there are 900 varieties of crickets (who knew?).  Crickets also have many "songs," each varying depending on the message (mating, warning, threat, etc.) and those chirps vary with the temperature (yes, as mentioned in the Library of Congress page, just count the number of chirps in a 15-second period and add 37...voila, the accurate temperature outside).  Crickets mostly dine on flowers and even dead vegetation but will eat other protein if needed (dog kibble is used in commercial facilities), even their own wings in some cases.  As to our using them as a food source, in Thailand alone there are over 20,000 cricket farms.  Crickets are also quite aware of avoiding inbreeding or what biology terms, polyandrous, and as Wiki adds, uses "a postcopulatory fertilization bias in favour of unrelated males to avoid the genetic consequences."  This just means that they will mate with several males and the female's body will favor the non-related male's sperm (dang science talk).  But here was what I found most interesting, that crickets have made their way into folklore long before Jiminy Cricket entered the scene in Pinocchio.  Adds Wiki: The folklore and mythology surrounding crickets is extensive.  The singing of crickets in the folklore of Brazil and elsewhere is sometimes taken to be a sign of impending rain, or of a financial windfall.  In Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca's chronicles of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, the sudden chirping of a cricket heralded the sighting of land for his crew, just as their water supply had run out.  In Caraguatatuba, Brazil, a black cricket in a room is said to portend illness; a gray one, money; and a green one, hope.  In Alagoas state, northeast Brazil, a cricket announces death, thus it is killed if it chirps in a house.  In Barbados, a loud cricket means money is coming in; hence, a cricket must not be killed or evicted if it chirps inside a house.  However, another type of cricket that is less noisy forebodes illness or death.
 
   Perhaps I'll never discover what caused the sudden disappearance of the birds around our area.  Was it the climate, the markings of a cold winter coming (the weather has certainly been unusual, not only here but in many parts of the world); the disappearance of food sources (a few birds have now returned to the feeders, but still far less than there were in earlier months); was it some sort of vibration that could be sensed in some animals but not us (or that we were perhaps choosing to ignore)?  Was it simply their time to go, a regular seasonal change that I had just never noticed before?  Or perhaps it was yet another mystery of nature, a reminder that there were indeed things left to discover in the natural world and that I had to start paying a bit more attention to that and less to the distractions and glaring lights of technology, from computer screens to television screens...that I needed to step outside more often and just take the time to observe and smell and listen.  The crickets are all gone now, perhaps that final one that landed on my railing and waited there patiently while I took pictures had indeed come to tell me farewell, to tell me in a classic Aussie/Irish way, "good on ya!" just for being outside and noticing, that there is more to discover if we just take a moment to look deeper.  And I take solace in the fact that it was a green cricket, one that in some countries portends hope.  I like that.  Perhaps the birds and the crickets are much more knowledgeable than we think, that there is much left we still have to learn and among those things is to not give up, to continue to hope, even when times and routines are disrupted.  And what I found most amazing was to think that all it took was silence for me to listen...