This month when I am sitting outside I am assaulted by insect sounds. The cicadas are loud and irritating. I wouldn’t call their sound a “song.” Cicadas are also pretty creepy looking. (Take a look at this cicada molting for a quick sci-fi moment.) They have those large, wide apart eyes transparent, veined wings. Cicadas are often colloquially called locusts, but they they are unrelated to true locusts. At this point in summer you find their cast off shells around the garden.
And then there are the katydids. You can hear some calling “Katy did! Katy did!” in one part of the trees, and another answering “Katy didn’t, didn’t, didn’t!” from the opposite direction. Listen to them.
True katydids (Pterophylla camellifolia) are relatives of grasshoppers and crickets. They grow over two inches long and are leaf-green in color. Katydids have oval-shaped wings with lots of veins which makes them look a lot like leaves. They spend most of their time at the tops of trees.
According to my own nature calendar where I record buds, blooms, fruiting and other signs of seasonal change, the katydids seem to show up right at the start of August. This year, like a lot of other nature signs, they were about a week early.
There is a folklore observation that says that autumn will arrive 90 days after the katydids start to sing.
You are much more likely to hear a katydid than see it. And what are they singing about? Like many insects, they are singing for love. Or lust, I suppose, as the males are trying to attract a mate. This is their reproductive season (August through mid-October).
The males are high in the trees and females come to them. Katydids are poor flier, preferring to walk, and a male katydid may never leave the tree on which he was hatched.
Their song comes from rubbing their wings together (known scientifically as stridulating) and the other katydis are listening with tympanal membranes on their knees.
The song’s tempo is faster in hot weather and slower on a cool night. Their number diminish as we get into fall and that first hard frost will kill the remaining ones.
Katydids eat leaves of most deciduous trees and shrubs, and seem to like oaks best. But they don’t do any serious damage to the trees or shrubs, so we don’t bother spraying insecticides for them. Their enemies are the birds, bats, spiders, frogs, snakes, and other insect-eaters.
There are some folk stories about “what Katy did” but none I have read are very interesting. I prefer to think of them as a signal that summer is half over, and their song fades as summer fades.