We live out in the country on five aces. Near the fence line on our property is a clump of trees and bushes. In this area you can hear crickets making their high pitched whine. Sometimes the sound level is so high I find myself talking louder to compensate. Now looking at the size of a single cricket its obvious that this crescendo isn’t caused by one out even two of them. Thinking about it, the sound seems to be coming from everywhere, not a specific spot so it’s hard to imagine even a hundred crickets making this sound. So how many are there per typical acre of land? A thousand, a hundred thousand, a million? If they ever develop thumbs are we humans goners?
Not sure of the ‘average’ density of crickets/acre, (crickets/sq yd?) but I suspect that it varies widely from one year to the next.
Back in the early 80’s I worked on a job down close to Corpus Christi, Tx. The cricket population suddenly skyrocketed (IIRC, it was early spring) to the point of making it hazardous to drive on certain roads, and very ‘icky’ to walk.
It was reported to be an ‘anomally’, (in that it wasn’t like that every year) and was over seemingly as quickly as it began. YMMV
I was thinking about this the other day whilst walking across a large field of long grass. There were a dozen sheep in the field, but I’m fairly sure the total weight of grasshoppers in the same field would have been greater.
We have a bounty of crickets this year and also of katydids. I think the katydids are even louder than the crickets. There’s just the usual amount of grasshoppers.
I’m puzzled that I haven’t heard a single cicada. I can’t remember the last time we went without cicadas in August.
