Apologies for a silly mistake.
On April 11, in writing about using a dish for recording, I said, about a
cicada in my garden:
>
> In trying to find it I've used a recorder and headphones with Klas's so
excellent Telinga set-up. The general direction of the insect immediately
becomes apparent (which it is not to my naked ears) but when I get the dish
focussed exactly on the cicada, there is a marked change in the sound, and =
I
>wondered what was going on.
>
And I added:
>
> The above has only just occurred to me. It's now virtually the end of th=
e
cicada season, and I don't know if any are still singing - it's wet today.
If there are any, I'll try to get a recording to demonstrate what I've been
>writing about.
>
Well we did get one final day of summer, and the cicada sang. Now my face
is red: The change in sound is simply due to clipping. I had not tried to
record the cicada before, just used the Telinga to try to find the cicada. =
I
didn't realise how much the level of sound increasaed when the dish is
focussed right on the insect. When I did record it, of course I watched th=
e
level and it shot up to 0 dB.
Sorry about that.
May I make amends in some small way, by recommending (for anyone who doesn'=
t
already know it) a really delightful book about insect sounds: "Crickets an=
d
Katydids, Concerts and Solos" by Vincent G. Dethier (Harvard University
Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1992). Dethier is Gilbert L. Woodside
Professor of Zoology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
I was reminded of the book, by my final day of summer and that lone cicada'=
s
singing. Dethier's book describes one summer of collecting, caging and
caring for those orthopteran musicians in Frnaklin, New Hampshire, and he
ends the book thus:
"I realised anew how much the listener brings to the music, how music evoke=
s
moods complementary to its setting, and how moods close the circle by
shading the music. I felt a sense of melancholy, listening to the cricket.
He was calling, and there was no mate to listen. He was calling into the
void of imminent winter. Yet in that melancholy, I experienced =AD if not
anticipation and assurance =AD at least hope for another spring.
"Two days later it snowed."
Syd Curtis in Brisbane
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