what's buzzing in the trees?

[Anonymous Poster]

what\'s buzzing in the trees?

Just like the "night sounds" of my other post I just made, all my life I've heard this "buzzing" sound coming from trees in the summer. If I try to get close and see what it is, it stops. This goes on all day either in the country on in the city. For example, right outside the building where I work I can hear them buzzing.

 

[cowboydoc]

Re: what\'s buzzing in the trees?

I think what you are talking about are locusts. They are big bugs that look ugle and make alot of noise. Any in the midwest that's what they are.

 

[Harv]

Re: what\'s buzzing in the trees?

Out west here, I might guess you were talking about the cicadae. Very loud, very distinct.

 

[Bird]

Re: what\'s buzzing in the trees?

Danny, I think Cowboydoc was a country boy like me/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif and we grew up calling them "locusts" although the dictionary defines "locust" as a type of grasshopper and our "locusts" are actually called "cicadas". My old dictionary even has a picture of one; maybe yours does, too. Or you can do a web search on "cicada" and find a lot of information including this site http://ipm-www.ncsu.edu/insect_notes/Ornamentals_and_Turf/not17.html

Bird

 

[Bird]

Re: what\'s buzzing in the trees?

Harv, I guess you type faster than me./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Bird

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Re: what\'s buzzing in the trees?

Sorry, I forgot to tell you where I live. I'm in southern Indiana. So, I'm surprised to hear that grasshoppers get into the trees. I thought, from their name, they were only in the grass.

 

[Bird]

Re: what\'s buzzing in the trees?

Danny, I don't think what you have been hearing was grasshoppers, but we definitely have both grasshoppers and cicadas in the trees around here. The grasshoppers will literally eat all the leaves off some shrubs or small trees at times.

Bird

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Re: what\'s buzzing in the trees?

I agree, probably locust although I've heard people call them "Kateydids" (phonic spelling). Not sure they're the same thing though.

Wise Guy

 

[glennmac]

Re: what\'s buzzing in the trees?

Always called them cicadas here in the northeast. When I hear them I always know its going to be a hot day. They dont seem to sing on cool summer days.

 

[cowboydoc]

Re: what\'s buzzing in the trees?

You are right Bird that's what I always called them because that's what my Grandpa said they were. I had wondered the same thing about the locust but never looked into it. Now I know! Thanks for the correction on what they really are.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Re: what\'s buzzing in the trees?

I looked up "cicadas" in the dictionary, here's what Noah Webster has to say:

cicad or tree cricket; any one of many species of insects, genus Cicada, living on trees or shrubs, etc and having a charactistically sharp chirp produced by vibrating a tightly stretched membrane beneath the abdomen. The best known species is the American species Cicada septendecim or seventeen year locust.

PitbullMidwest

 

[Bird]

Re: what\'s buzzing in the trees?

Wise Guy, the cicada (or as we always called 'em, locusts) and the katydid are two different things, but I'm not at all sure I'd know the difference in the sound they make; just know the difference when I see them.

Bird

 

[ERNIEB]

Re: what\'s buzzing in the trees?

We also call cicada by the name locust. Spanish speaking people call them chicharra (chee-cha-roll them r's-ah).
You know if you have them, because at some point they shed their skins. They leave these attached to trees, fences, or just about anything that doesn't move.

Ernie

 

[glennmac]

Re: what\'s buzzing in the trees?

Here is the cicada mania site:

http://www.dancentury.com/cicada/cicadalinks.html

 

[glennmac]

Re: what\'s buzzing in the trees?

Note that in the cicada mania site, they make clear that cicadas are NOT locusts. See the FAQs, for example.

 

[PBMAX]

Re: what\'s buzzing in the trees?

Bird the way I know a Cadi-did is because thats what the SAY.....If you listen that sound like they are saying k-d-did....It here in Bama they are usualy a brite leafy green and as you say can do some damage...Locast to me are nothing but oversized brownish grass hopppers.That Buzzing sound we get here is from a very larg, very ugly bug.looks like a huge flying beetle(seen them almost 2"in length) with clearish wings they have a way of popping their body joinyt that makes a loud cliking sound if you pick one up.So we call them clickers....wife knows the real name will ask her...

Laziness is the Father of invention.../w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif
Lil' Paul
Proud owner of TC21D

 

[Bird]

Re: what\'s buzzing in the trees?

<font color=blue>usualy a brite leafy green</font color=blue>

Yep, the katydid looks much like a green humpback grasshopper.

And your "clickers" are cicada.

I guess I first learned the difference between what we called locusts and the cicada when someone many years ago told me that Moses' locusts weren't what we called locusts.

Bird