Locust Songs

August 15th
In Maryland they start singing in early August and don't stop till first frost.

They are all around but never seen. The hotter it is, the more frenzied their song. Locusts. They thrum and keen on the warmest of days from first light till after sundown.

Maryland has had a relatively cool, wet summer in 2003. But right now we're in a hot spell and the locusts are out in force during my morning runs. I never see them but from the sound there must be thousands. They scream from every tree I pass on my runs.

When I was a boy I would spend my summers with my grandparents in Delaware. They had no air conditioning and probably would have declined it if offered. One of my most vivid memories is lying in my hot corner bedroom trying to sleep while the locusts in the oak outside my window sang their bug tunes. I'd hear them falling asleep and awake to their call the next morning. And now whenever I hear them, I find myself transported back to those hot sheets in that stifling room... enraptured.

Do the locusts sing where you live?
K-