Crickets Chirping in the August Night

by Kevin Strauss

On warm August nights, when I have my windows open, I can hear the “breeep....breeep....breeep” of field crickets “singing” in the dark.

Crickets don’t sing the way that mammals and birds do, using vocal chords. Male crickets produce sound by rubbing their wings together. The males are making these sounds to define territory, attract females or warning off rival males. If the call attracts a rival male, the resident male changes to a “rivalry song” and if that doesn’t work, the two square off in a fight that could end in injury or death for the looser. This aggressive tendency in crickets led to the sport of cricket fights that were once popular in China. Traditionally, having a pet cricket was good luck in China, as well.

Crickets often sing in tall grass or hidden in cracks in building foundations. According to the the French naturalist M. Fabre, male crickets look for a good sunny spot for a home and begins digging an underground home. The cricket keeps expanding his home over the summer, making a doorway where he can sit and chirp in the evenings. Often by design or accident, the cricket conceals the door to its home under a tuft of grass.

Even though cricket sounds seem loud on autumn evenings, that volume can also endanger the males by attracting predators. That may be why crickets come out in the evening, when many predators are asleep. I always know that I am getting close to a cricket because it stops singing.

Our northwoods crickets are mostly black and are about an inch long as adults. If a male succeeds in attracting a female with his music, the two insects begin a courtship ritual that involves a quieter song form the male. After mating, the female uses a long needle-like ovipositor to deposit several hundred eggs in the soil. As the weather cools, the cricket songs slow and then cease as the adult crickets die. The eggs overwinter in the soil and hatch in the spring into tiny “mini-crickets.” These young crickets molt (outgrow their skin) 8-12 times before the reach adulthood in late July or August.

Field crickets normally feed on plants like grass, but they will also feed on other insects, including other crickets. They can also feed on garden produce, making small holes in peas, tomatoes and cucumbers. But a cricket in the house can be an even more damaging pest, feeding on cotton clothing.

But for now, we can enjoy the late-summer sounds of male crickets calling for a mate.

The Ely Timberjay