Oh, so many years ago, I was irritated by the sound of frogs and toads in the pond. You see, the "Frog Pond" at that time was designated as a "Fish Pond" and was home to a dozen or so very large gold fish. The fish had been one of my rescues! A young man who came to visit my son for the afternoon asked if he could "float" a baggy of tiny goldfish in the pond while he was here. Knowing he had a large aquarium at home, I agreed to let his fish stay in the cooling waters. When he was ready to leave, I asked why he bought "plain old goldfish" when I knew he had exotic fish in the tank. "Oh, these are to feed the other fish!". Well, that was not happening! Even though I knew he was going to go right out and buy more goldfish, I convinced him to let me have the little squirts. I released them into the pond and that was only the beginning. Those tiny (1 inch) fish quickly grew to about ten inches! I had the most beautiful pond ever! Then came Hurricane Katrina and the fish were never seen again. For the longest time, the pond sat vacant until the frogs moved in to set up household. FROGS! Loud frogs! And toads! Very loud toads! Our Fish Pond turned into a Frog Pond.
After the frogs and toads claimed the pond, I complained of the nightly serenading. My once quiet Bayou was now resonating with the mating calls of several thousand frogs and toads! The noise was so intense that it sounded as if the frogs and toads were inside the house with me. Sleep was a thing of the past. I fretted. I tossed and turned. Even though I grew up with a large pond full of frogs calling at night back on the farm, there was something irritating about these rascals. So I cajoled the sons to scoop the loud critters and haul them to a neighbor's pond (in the dead of night, no less!). The next night, the screaming critters had found their way back to the Fish Pond (or Fish-less Pond by this time.) Then, one night, I could take it no more and got out of bed to sit in the old porch rocker. Something had to give. I was exhausted from the lack of sleep. As I sat there rocking, I started noticing how many different songs there were, how the tones were different and how I would hear critters respond from far away.
Then came to mind a framed poem penned by my grandmother as she sat in a rocker on my folk's screened porch. "The Froggy Symphony" was her way of coping with the loud serenading of the frogs and toads in the pond back on the farm. It dawned on me that it was pure silliness for me to let the sounds irritate me so as, in a sense, I was a recipient of an untold blessing. I COULD HEAR! Yep, the critters' cacophony suddenly changed from a mishmash of calls to a "Froggy Symphony" of beautiful music.
Tonight, the tree frogs are calling. The toads are trilling. The bullfrogs are adding the bass. The nightly symphony starts with the first few warm nights and lasts until the first frost of the year. I have learned to embrace the noise as part of the charm of the Bayou. Add in about a billion or so crickets, a hoard of cicadas and dozens of assorted owls and the night is downright soothing! I can hear!
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.
