Tuesday, January 3

Meet Loudy McNoisypants ....

.... A cicada, he camped in our lemon tree last night, directly outside the open back door.
The noise was incredible. When I stepped directly into the sound wave my ears hurt.
So, I found him, introduced myself and entered relocation negotiations. That is I picked him up and moved him onto the Maple tree at the bottom of the garden.
He even sang a little while sitting on my hand, my whole arm thrummed with the sound. In other news I was lucky enough to see one of last year's tadpoles emerge, a fully formed wee froglet last evening. About the size of my thumbnail, shiny, dark with the hint of a stripe. We think this pretty much confirms our identification of the local frogs as Striped Marsh Frogs.
And now, despite the bushfire danger (winks) our leaf litter will be undisturbed, so tiny frogs may hide and keep cool. Who wants a tidy garden anyway?
Not me.

8 comments:

Zoomie said...

Loudy is quite beautiful, isn't he? We used to have a different sort in Japan when I lived there and my younger brother delighted in catching them and releasing them inside the screened porch where he could observe them for a day or two before returning them to their mating mission.

cookiecrumb said...

You live in Nature! So nice.
We have a domesticated dog and the occasional cabbage moth. Coyotes in the distance, not too far. Birds. Not bad.

Pink Granite said...

Wow!!!
The size, the colors - it's so spectacular.
Thank you.

e said...

He is gorgeous!! I don't think I've ever seen one. I mean, I know more or less what they look like, but I've never actually seen one in person.

Zoomie said...

You should commission a jeweler to make you an enameled pin of Loudy. He'd make a gorgeous lapel decoration.

themother said...

He's a green grocer cicada. There are yellow mondays, floury bakers (with a dusting of white over them), black princes (tiny ones, with red eyes) and lots of others. Oh, he brings back my youth! themother

S said...

How cool, I have only ever seen their dried up cast off shells.
He is quite big too.
Fabulous frog news.

Ms Brown Mouse said...

According to google he's the noisiest of all the cicadas! My ringing ears agree :)