Summer is in full swing in the mountains of Appalachia. The green blanket that is laying everywhere is startling and wondrous to see.
Along with the beauty are the comforting sounds of summer.
Slamming screen doors, children’s laughter, weedeaters, lawnmowers, tillers, and the hiss of a canner all come to mind.
Two sounds that have been part of every summer of my life are jar flies and katydids.
Photo by Don Casada
Hot summer days are filled with the raspy sound of jar flies. Although the sound is ever present I have seldom seen a live jar fly.
If you’ve never heard one here’s what they sound like:
While the jar flies do their hollering during the daytime, katydids wait till dark to start theirs.
The katydids are out in full force. I love to listen to their repetitive chorus. Even with all the windows shut you can still hear their nightly banter. We often open our bedroom window a little so we can hear them better.
Not everyone enjoys hearing katydids. Over the years I’ve written about them several times and folks have said they dislike the sound.
Years ago I was at a contra dance at the Folk School and stepped outside for a breath of air.
Another gentlemen visiting the area and attending the dance had the same idea. He said “It’s really loud in this part of the US.” It took me a minute to realize he was talking about the katydids.
Here’s one of the stories about the sound katydids make.
“There was a lovely maiden named Katy who fell in love with a handsome man. She loved him with all her heart and soul and only wanted to please him. Fate turned against her when the handsome man fell in love with her sister. The pain of seeing them together was too much for Katy and in a fit of jealous anger she killed them both. No one in town would have ever believed she killed them, but the bugs turned against her telling the towns people: Katy did it Katy did it.”
Here’s a few pieces of katydid folklore
- katydids sing to bring in cold weather (I’m telling you it takes them a while to get it here 🙂 )
- 3 months from the first katydid chirp there will be frost
- the earlier in the summer you hear the katydids the earlier the first frost will be in fall
- on the day you hear the first katydid in July it will frost on that same day in September
If you’ve never heard katydids before, here’s a short video recording of them I did several years ago.
In the last few weeks a lot of folks have asked me if katydids are cicadas. They are not. Katydids are a type of insect, very similar to crickets. A quick internet search will give you more information about them.
I feel very blessed to have lived my entire life with the jar flies and katydids singing to me ever summer. After all these years I’m not tired of them yet and I don’t think I ever will be.
Last night’s video: Running Errands & the First Place Matt Ever Worked in Cherokee County.
Tipper
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Did you know that when katydids or other bugs are singing in the trees if you lightly touch the trunk of the tree they will stop for a few seconds? My daddy taught me this. He also told me that when you heard a whippoorwill if you turned your pocket inside out and twisted it you would wring it’s neck. Mama said if you cleaned the hair out of your brush outside and a bird used it in their nest you would go crazy. And if you pulled a tooth and threw it outside on the ground what ever animal stepped on it their tooth would grow where your tooth was. And I used to believe every word of it. I live in the foothills of the Appalachians, so I grew up and talk much like you. But that about touching the tree trunk is true.
Jar flies are in full song as I read this on my back porch swing. The sounds that I miss most in the summer are the bob whites, the whip-poor-wills, and the screech owls. We just don’t have many left here anymore, and it makes me very sad.
I have not heard a bobwhite , meadowlark or whippoorwill in years.
We came home late last night from my granddaughter’s music camp concert and as I walked from the garage I could hear the katydids. I wanted to just sit outside to just enjoy the sweet sounds of summer. However, it started to rain, so I went in and listened to the blessing of rain hitting our roof and very thankful for it!!!! Another night I will sit out to enjoy the symphony that summer nights bring. Thanks for the sound video, it is sweet music to my hears!
Hello Tipper and bunch. Thank you for the pictures and the sound tracks. Around my parts (southwestern VA) me and members of my family race to hear the first kati did. It’s like a game. I love it because it usually means that fall is just around the corner. All kinds of stuff come together about then. Putt’n up stuff for the cold times, fall festivals, trout fishing, hunting, school etc. I’m sitt’n on the porch watching lightening bugs and strain’n to hear a kati did. Thanks for everything you do to help celebrate Appalachia!
Oh my Tipper. These are my favorite sounds in the whole world. I call them my sounds of summer. I sit out on my screen porch every nite to listen ❤️❤️❤️. I live in a large neighboorhood. But we are blessed to be surrounded by trees so I’m able to hear all the sounds
We lived in St. Louis, Missouri, Right in the city, as a child, growing up. I remember sleeping on the open unscreened porch in the hottest summer nights. If any insects were heard it was mosquitoes and flies. It LOL. We never heard katydids or jar flies. I loved the city back then. We did get in the country though, at Grandma and Grandpa’s, in the summer. We’d spend a week, maybe more time at the farm, unless or until I’d get homesick. I did that a lot back then. I guess we heard the insects singing back then, I truly can’t remember. It’s great having your blog Miss Tipper and company. It brings back so many wonderful memories and people we don’t think of all the time. Have a great weekend everyone and wanted to say I really enjoyed going to town yesterday with you and Mr Matt. It so beautiful in your mountains. Thanks for taking us along. Living the country life, from South Mississippi Jennifer
Here in northern Illinois, the convergence of the 17 and 13 year cicadas has just ended. Over the past fascinating and ear-splitting 6 weeks, we saw thousands upon thousands of the little critters covering every inch of outdoor space. Outdoor concerts were canceled due to the cicadas’ songs drowning out those of the musicians! I witnessed them mating and a few weeks later, I observed the females laying their eggs on narrow tree branches. Finally, we saw them fall to the ground all abuzz that their wings failed them, finally dying quietly where they lay, their life cycle complete. Isn’t Nature ever awe-inspiring?
Oh! My! – Tipper! I am sorry, but neither of these are what one would call shall we say ‘pretty’ insects!! Especially the jar fly! Yet I do like their sound – as you have shared it, but I have never heard either in person. I do recall crickets and grass hoppers while growing up and their sounds which were mostly heard in the day.
Now I know what that bug sound is during the day. I always wondered. And the katydids here in Michigan usually show up in August and to me it’s a sign of summer winding down. Love your Blogs.
Jar fly sounds I associate with visiting my Kiamichi mountains kin in Southeastern Oklahoma as a kid. All us kids sitting in the back of Uncle Junior’s ‘52 Chevy truck on the way to Old Blue Hole to swim, jar flies hollering from the dense vegetation. Also reminds me of the little talk he gave us about water moccasins. Snaky part of the world, that. Like you they had copperheads, but also cottonmouths and rattlers. So part of those summer sounds remind me of snakes.
When I get down south and sit a spell out on the porch steps at the old place, there is still just a little amount of time that all you can hear is the bees, flies, dirt dobbers, and sometimes soft wind in the trees. What I really miss is the sound of the old screen door, I have nothing like it now. And from my teenage years, in the summertime I loved to sleep with the windows up and faintly hear the trains in the night. For some reason, they were beautiful sounds to me.
I enjoyed going along with you on your errands trip and seeing the beautiful scenery. You surely do not have the traffic I have to drive in even though I don’t live in town. Of course, 40 years ago this area was much different too being mostly farms.
I love hearing the sounds of insects and also frogs. God made them and He gave them voices, and they are all surely sounds of His seasons.
Those sounds are so familiar and I hear them where ever I’ve lived. I reckon that the folks who don’t like them are sensitive to certain frequencies of sound. I know the higher frequencies really bother some of my kin.
One of the sounds of summer was quail calling “bob bob white”. I believe Randy has commented before that is no longer heard. I remember it from childhood but it has been many and many a year since I heard it. We also used to hear cars on gravel roads but many of them are paved now. As to kaydids predicting first frost – I think it works somewhere but has been displaced to places it doesn’t. It doesn’t work here along the southern edge of the Appalachians in Georgia. If I don’t forget, I’ll see when the date of first frost is compared to first week of July. Right now our official weather data website is not responding.
Ron, you are right about the quail, haven’t heard one call in many years. I ask my friend I bird hunted with if he every heard a quail call nowadays. He said he couldn’t remember the last time he heard one. Rabbits are scarce too, but squirrels and deer are very plentiful and the DNR is happy. I remember in the past I was more anxious for Thanksgiving than Christmas, both bird (quail) and rabbit season open on Thanksgiving day. The friend I mentioned and me both live in the most rural area of Greenville County, SC.
The sound you played called jar flies I’ve always thought were cicadas. Are they the same? I love the sounds of the katydids and the crickets too. I always crack a door or window to hear them.
I think jarflies are the annual cicada.
I grew up (in Raleigh) calling them July flies. I was a teenager before I heard them called cicadas.
The primary evening sound around these parts (central Texas) is crickets. Cicadas stop in late afternoon.
Katydids and frogs bring back childhood memories of the many quiet nights we slept with all the windows raised and listened to their lonesome sound. When my sister visits me and the katydids start singing she tells her husband it’s time to go because they make her sad.
Nothing quite like the sound of summer nights. Katydids, frogs, and occasionally an owl all singing together in harmony.
As a child who grew up in rural areas, summer was filled with miracles. But wading into a summer night was, indeed magical. So many wondrous and shadowless sounds with lightning bugs swimming all around–and of course some in a jar to lull one to sleep . . .
The first thing I heard when I walked out on the porch this morning was a large group of black crows hanging out in the trees and in our front yard. I watched them as they were chasing a large hawk off. I hear lots of smaller birds singing all day long and it is wonderful to listen too. Then, there is the occasional buzzing sound from the hummingbird’s wings as they dip their tiny beaks in my flowers hanging on the porch—and quickly dart away. I hear and see a big, red-headed woodpecker as it is pounding away on an old stump, feasting on bugs of some sort. A dog is barking in the distance. Soon I will probably hear someone mowing or weedeating—but for now it is all about the birds.
Those sounds bring up different feelings for me. Growing up on a farm in Florida with my grandparents next door was something I took for granted. I also grew up in a single wide trailer with no air conditioning. So, these sounds remind me of hot summer days with nothing to do because it was so hot.
Looking back, I wish my parents knew God then and hadn’t divorced twice. More like three times…Mama tried. Anyway, it is funny how all of our senses can trigger memories.
When I was a child, the chorus of katydids equaled summer at Mamaw and Papaw’s in the country. Me and my 2 cousins would stay there from the weekend after school let out until Labor Day weekend. Or parents came up on Fridays after work and went back home on Sunday afternoons. We 3 girls slept in one bed and the big window was always open because there was no AC. I’d listen to the katydids until I fell asleep. Back then I heard “Katy did, Katy didn’t. Yes she did. No she didn’t.” Seems like that was a little poem someone either told us or read to us in a book. Now, in my sixties, I’m fortunate enough to live in a wooded area of the same city I grew up in, so I can hear the chorus of summer any time I step outside at night. It’s familiar and comforting.
Well, around here Katydids start their hollerin about mid to late June and the first frost is usually in mid to late October. I guess we have a longer summer or our Katydids like working overtime.
Ever since you mentioned katydids I was wondering what they sounded like. They must not make it this far north because I don’t recall hearing them even when I lived in the country. We just hear crickets. So thanks Tipper for the sound track. It was a real treat to hear.
Those Katydids are a bit loud. But I think I understand why you enjoy their nightly serenade. There’s a kind of rhythm to it. Nature’s lullaby.
The katydid and jar fly photos reveal two ugly critters indeed! I’ve been hearing them and haven’t seen them, but to be honest in my 57 years I’ve not went a’prowlin’ for them neither! I like to hear these insects making a racket day and night. I guess it’s a hillbilly thing. I was walking at the city park with a lifelong lady friend a while back and she said “Do you hear that owl?” I waited a minute and replied “Becky, I’m pretty sure that’s a mourning dove.” I had to laugh to myself over that one. She’s older than me and don’t know the difference betwixt mourning doves and owls….anyhow, there’s a tremendous amount of things I don’t know either and it may be argued I’m a moron. It’s all good. Here in southern WV we have THE BUG OF THE DAY and tomorrow it will change and add bugs to what’s already ravaging people, animals and crops. It’s been aphids, black aphids, June bugs, Japanese beetles, Asian BITING ladybugs, Asian stink bugs, a variety of pine beetles, assorted beetles and of course strange mosquitos (new GMO species because there’s few I would not know from literal years in that business) and the deadliest wasps venom and yellow jackets venom etc hell bent on blood and misery. It’s nice but how nice? If you ask the country or a big city I’d have to take the country cause the enemy is easier to recognize and avoid. Have fun y’all fighting every insect coming and going! I know I can’t get enough! Lol
I don’t seem to hear the sounds I once did even though I have lived at the same place for 70 years. Today most of the homes have storm doors, not screen doors and the windows stay closed because of air conditioning. I live in an area where there still is almost total quiteness during the night from man made noise. Now during the day I hear the birds and the lawn mowers and cars. I remember when there would only be a few cars to pass by at certain times of the day and you would know who were driving them. When growing up I would hear the farmers and the old two cylinder JD tractors and the sound of the M Farmalls along with a few lawn mowers but no weed eaters. Now not many farm and the few that do have diesel tractors that all sound the same. As a child when the windows were raised at night and no ac, I liked to listen at night to the trains blowing their horns going through the small town of Honea Path 14 miles away.
Out on I-40, not too far from where I live, are the last of the steep grades before you get to the flatlands. You don’t notice it during the day as much, but at night when the world has hushed you hear the sounds of Jake Brakes being engaged. In case you don’t know, a Jake Brake is an engine braking system that uses the engine to slow the truck instead of relying entirely on the brakes at the wheels. It does produce a loud harsh sound but unlike most people I find it pleasant. That and the rumble of a parked diesel locomotive are soothing to my ears.
I grew up in an old house without AC in Raleigh, about 4 city blocks East of the Seaboard Air Lines roundhouse in the era of steam locomotives. I have fond memories of listening to those locomotives as they made up or broke down the boxcars from the trains. Just below the roundhouse was Devereaux Meadow, home field of the Raleigh Caps minor league team. I could hear the roar of the crown occasionally and wondered what the game had done to produce it. Enos “Country” Slaughter managed the team at one time.
I have always loved the songs of summertime insects. I know some people think they’re noisy, but it’s peaceful to me.
The katydids are present and accounted for in southern Ohio! Like you, I have never seen a live jar fly. I surely do love summer and its going way too fast.
Katydids usually started singing around the first of July in Forsyth County Georgia, and I always associate their singing with the start of revival meetings in the area.
We went to meetings twice a day for a week at our Baptist Church, and then would visit other revivals within driving distance. At the same time, green bean, corn, peaches and everything in the garden was being picked and canned. None of the churches were air-conditioned, and window fans were not used.
When I hear katydids singing I remember sitting in a packed meeting house, with the windows open listening to them singing along with the congregation while hand held fans waved and tried to cool the hot July night.