The Bayou Chorus

  The weather has been a tad cooler for the past few nights making it nice to linger outside a bit longer and to open the windows to air out the house.  Unless you do either of these things, you can be blissfully unaware of what happens on the Bayou at night.  Open that window, however, and the "peace and quiet" of being this far away from neighbors becomes nothing but a myth.  The Bayou is a noisy place!  Most folks think that the variety of buzzing, clicking and chirping noises are made strictly by crickets but that is not the case.  We have our share of crickets, for sure, but a lot of those sounds are made by cicadas and katydids.  They all join in with the symphony of frogs, owls, alligators and coyotes.  The cacophony can be nigh on deafening.

  It was a katydid that caught my eye this morning.  I had recently snipped back the roses on the arbor and obviously took the hiding place of one, fat katydid. The critter was not truly happy at being homeless and was moping around hunting for a new dwelling.  Katydids use camouflage as one of their main defense tactics so this poor creature knew it had better find a new dwelling right quickly.  In fact, a katydid on the ground is not in its best interest as they are slow and rather clumsy.  In the trees, they are hard to see, have plenty of food (leaves) and are much safer.   They are agile fliers so my little friend had best take flight and find a new home!

  Katydids are nocturnal and prefer to stay out of sight as much as possible.  The only evidence you may see is a few holes in the leaves of your favorite tree.  This does not harm the tree so my advice is don't try to rid the place of the katydids...just enjoy their nightly serenade.