I was walking along a long trail last night with my two dogs, in the middle of nowhere, watching the moon rise in the summer sky and listening to the insects chirp, buzz, and click.
Some of the chirping seemed as though it was sustained - like it was going on for solid minutes. Other chirping was quite varied.
My question: is the sustained chirping a sort of chorus of many chirps that hit my hear as one combined sound? Or, is this one very excited and energetic bug that can sustain a note for several minutes to an hour?
The sustained sound might have been tree frogs or toads. Tree frogs usually give single short vocalizations of a second or less often and rapidly repeated, but tend to sing in chorus sounding together like one, which can be deafening and carry for a mile… Toads emit a long rattling trill. All variable by species, and species variable by what part of the country you live in.
Insects have no vocal apparatus. They make sustained buzzing sounds by rubbing serrated or textured body parts together. Like Cicadas.
The very loud calls are mostly for mating, and so they are usually a chorus.
Insects make the calls during their mating season. Cicadas are desperate since they are mature adults for only a short time, and so make the loudest chorus… Yes the chorus tends to sounds like they were a choir singing one song… but since it stretches for miles and miles the insects in that choir must be spread out all over the place.