What’s making that noise? Chasing down the insect sounds of summer

An adult Brood X cicada is seen, in Washington, Thursday, May 6, 2021.

When you stop and listen, Colorado is the stage for an insect cacophony this time of year.

Crickets sing in the grasses, and the trees are full of shrilling cicadas and the scree-scree-scree calls of katydids. 

Those are sounds most people can identify. But what about the less obvious chirps and clicks?

That question has been on Ann Garfinkel’s mind this summer as she’s taken her daily walks through an open space near the Highline Canal south of Denver. This spring, as the epic mud finally began to dry, she heard something new in the trees — at least, new to her.

“We could hear a little ‘click’ in the trees. And at first I thought it was a bird, and eventually realized it was some kind of bug,” said Garfinkel. (“We” in this case includes Garfinkel’s Irish Doodle, Reilly, who was more interested in pogo-ing after rabbits than investigating clicking insects.)

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