Identifying Cricket/Katydid Calls?

Nature Talk
1

I’m fascinated by all the cricket and katydid calls this time of year in the northern hemisphere (specifically upstate New York.)

How do you learn how to identify them? They sound so distinctive when I hear them. But I’m having a hard time getting started on identifying them. I have a copy of “Guide to Night-singing Insects of the Northeast” with the CD. But all I can figure out to do is listen to each and every track. And after ~5 tracks they all start sounding the same.

Any tips on how to get started?

The only thing I’ve thought of is to make a spectrogram, then start sorting by pitch.

1 Like
2

https://orthsoc.org/sina/

1 Like
3

That website is more comprehensive, but I find this one more intuitive for browsing options:
https://songsofinsects.com/thumbnail-guide-to-species

It also looks like New York has a decent amount of identified Orthopterans with audio, so you can listen to examples from your area and maybe tag identifiers for explanations:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=48&quality_grade=research&sounds&taxon_id=47651&view=species

1 Like