A Sound Missing This Summer

... at least here in New York.

I have yet to hear a single cicada this summer. The weather has been perfect for them, hot and dry.

In Texas summers, the little critters can be deafening with their singing. It's amazing that so much noise could come from so small a creature.

Here's what I used to hear on summer afternoons at the hottest time of the day:



Sometimes I would hear whole Mormon Tabernacle Choirs of hundreds of these insects singing this very song like this:




A different variety of cicada sang a very different song in the evening:






The Chinese appear to be fond of their cicadas. They show up in Chinese painting for centuries.



Zhao Shao-ang, Bamboo and Cicada, 1966




Palace Ladies Listening to Birds and Cicadas, from the Tomb of Prince Li Xian, 8th century, Tang Dynasty.