Shhhh...listen...do you hear it?

Shhhh...listen...do you hear anything? Anything at all...that isn't man made?

All we hear...is silence. Absolute, complete, silence at night here in the Midwest. Something is wrong, very wrong.

*insert crickets*

Do you even hear them..the crickets I mean?

Us either. It is the sound of silence and it is a very eerie absence.

Night after night we have been sitting outside because the Midwest daytime hours have become so hot, only those living nocturnal lives find relief. We live in the country and the nighttime sounds of crickets and peepers have always been a peaceful symphony of chirps and tweets accompanying our evening porch sits. Now nothing.

It is way to quiet outside at night. No sounds. No chirping of the crickets or summer peppers?

Something is wrong...very wrong. Is anyone experiencing these silent nights?

This is what our nighttime used to sound like, to borrow a brief 30 second youtube recording...



Now all we hear is...silence. Nothing. Not a chirp.

I am really concerned and was wanting to hear from other members in other areas? What are you hearing or not hearing? What is, or rather isn't, going on? It has been very hot and very dry here after a very mild winter.



Shhhh...listen...do you hear it?

I would venture a guess and say that once it cools down a little, the crickets will be back out too.
Bugs can only handle so much heat too.

reply to post by DancedWithWolves


Yeah,

I have to say I have not heard crickets in years. Since 2004. I used to hear them all the time growing up in California, but I never heard them here in the Midwest. I thought it was just because I moved to a different region.

I guess not.

Although I do not live in the midwest (I live on the southern plains), I looked up reasons why crickets chirp, and why they stop, and came up with this:

Crickets don't have ears like we do. Instead, they have a pair of tympanal organs on their legs, which vibrate in response to vibrating air molecules (sound) in the surrounding air. A special receptor called the chordatal organ translates the vibration from the tympanal organ into a nerve impulse, which reaches the cricket's brain. The cricket, ever on the alert for predators, responds to this message by doing what it can to hide – it goes silent.

Crickets are extremely sensitive to vibration, so I'm not surprised that it reacts to your movements, however softly you try to get out of bed and sneak up on it.

Only male crickets chirp, by the way. The males make that chirping sound by rubbing the edges of their forewings together. They chirp to call for female mates. Since most predators are active during daylight hours, crickets chirp at night.

insects.about.com...

Therefore, we can surmise a few scenarios:

1. There is some sort of vibration they sense which is making them silent (worse-case scenario..shifting earth).

2. There aren't any male crickets out there, because something has happened to affect their gender.

3. There are too many predators (out where I live, the scorpions eat the crickets, so rarely do I hear them chirp).

4. There aren't any crickets at all.

Interesting observation, OP.

I'm here in the midwest. Il. , Wis. boarder. It's been really hot here. There are still some without power.

Here in my area we have not lost power, but nor have we had any precipation at all. Our 4th of July fireworks were cancelled. Lawns are just straw here.

But last nite I felt alittle wind coming up and decided to sleep out side. I went out about 10:30. I didn't hear a peep out of anything. I got up about 3:00am and again it was very quiet.

But come sun up, the birds were chripping, and all seemed well.

I think its just this hot opressive weather. I even feel like I'm moving in slow motion. And I am constantly tired.

Higher than normal radiation levels will leave insects and animals eerily quiet.

The sun going crazy and blasting our atmosphere away could also be making them quiet. Have you been watching the sun on the SOHO Satellite website?

She's been going crazy.

While silence during the daytime hours makes sense...crickets "like" heat and in the evening hours when temperatures have been in the 70s or 80s...you would think we would hear...something.

HOW TO – Tell Temperature with Crickets

Apparently, as male crickets heat up, they chirp more rapidly. By counting the chirps, especially of one species, the Snowy Tree Cricket (Oecanthus fultoni), you can get a fairly accurate temperature. Here’s how:

Find yourself a cricket (a chirping one will be a male. A Snowy Tree Cricket (seen here) is the most accurate, but in a pinch, any cricket will do)

Count the chirps in a 14-second interval
Add “38″ to the total
That’s the current temperature, in Fahrenheit

The discoverer of this phenomenon, known as Dolbear’s Law, was American physicist and inventor Amos Dolbear, in 1897.

Another worry is the ever advancing use of insecticides in farming. Have we done it...have we finally tipped the scale and done away with the crickets and other woodland musicians by poisoning them into oblivion?

And the vibration question is interesting too...are they sensing something that we aren't that is keeping them silent and afraid to reveal themselves. What threat could they be picking up on?

I remember many a hot summer night. What I don't remember experiencing are these...silent nights. Something isn't right.

source

Here in Vegas the crickets chirp quite loudly, all damn night.

Enjoy the silence, I say.

im up here in MN and yes hot as hell lately(heat index about 100-105). I have noticed sometimes they are quiet at night around here too, but i have been hearing them a lot during the day constantly.

reply to post by fourthmeal


I did experience this once in my life, back in the mid 90's. It was early in the morning about 3 or 4 a, and I questioned what it would be like to live in a world where there was no sound. Strange thought,but "okay, I'll go with it", I told myself...Next thing in knew crickets stopped chirping, there was no wind, no sounds of cars driving on the bridge down the road on SR 520 Merritt Island, not one #ING(caps to emphasize how strange this was for me to go through) sound except the voice in my mind that speaks or thinks aloud(LOL). It was crazy feeling, a terrible feeling to be trapped without any sound what so ever I told myself, after listening to complete silence for about probably 20-30 seconds, After thinking how terrible it would be to be deaf, sounds began to come back one at a time...#ing wild, huh?!!

No silent nights in South Florida. I must have a crazy bird or a nightingale living in my backyard, it starts chirping and singing shortly after midnight every night without fail.

oh and crickets and frogs are very active and vocal here!

could be the heat or lack of rain??

reply to post by ATSGrunt


Try stepping into an anechoic chamber.

lol.

You can hear your own heart beat, but that's about it.

we had an insane surge of crickets here. they were EVERYWHERE. it didn't last long.... less than a week maybe. they're gone now.

In Maryland, at least my part of it there are no cricket sounds yet because the crickets haven't reached maturity yet. We saw quite a few in the yard and they were still all juveniles. I haven't seen a mature male cricket yet nor do I expect to for another couple of weeks. All the other wild life looks great for a change from last year. We even have frogs again this year. Last year I didn't see any, and this is a great toad and frog town with all of our little drainage ditches and creeks and streams. We also got our bunnies back, too. They and the birds were in scarce supply last year. This year we have a very normal abundance of wildlife. They don't seem to mind the heat at all, and it has been bad.

I suspect the previous year the animals sensed all the buildup we were having to the big regional quake and that may be why we had weird sky sounds and the ground felt strange and the animals were scarce. Of course that is just a guess. I'm certainly no scientist qualified to make any definitive pronouncements about the behavior of wildlife in correlation with seismic activity. I'm literally one of "old wives" that comes up with all those famous old wife's tales!

I wanted to add, are you perhaps mistaken about when you normally hear crickets? It's been so hot this year, did you perhaps forget it is still early summer and not later when crickets might mature and start singing in your region? It's just a thought. Singing crickets were always a midsummer thing for us. Now I can tell you the fireflies were out prematurely and that shocked me. They started coming out in late May! I normally wouldn't have expected them for another week or so.

reply to post by DancedWithWolves


right now i hear an incredibly high pitched sound.

Maybe i just have that inner ear ringing thing.

reply to post by Wertdagf


That was just me shrieking at the kids not to track dirt in on my clean floors. Sorry!

I am in Missouri, and I had June bugs in April/May. Now I have hardly any bugs, I have a light at night that attracts them, moths etc, but I noticed last night there are only one or two. I hope it is the heat and not something more ominous. Good catch OP

Never really noitced till I seen the OP's post, so tonight I listened. I'm here in central ny, about six seven miles from utica and not a peep or would that be chirp from the crickets.

I'm in north central Kentucky and its pretty damn loud here.
Still hot as hell and dry as a can be.

105 tomorrow! Yikes,been like that for over a week.

It's funny you mention that.. I live in south central BC and the past few years, we never heard crickets at night. I'd commented to my husband s few times about this!
BUT, this year, we hear them again!! Alot!!! At night... We had company from Calgary, and they wanted to find some to take home with them cause THEY never hear them anymore..