Summer Sounds: Cicadas

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MELISSA BLOCK, host: Now, the latest in our series on the Sounds of Summer.

(SOUNDBITES OF VARIOUS SOUNDS)

BRIAN MCCONNACHIE: I'm Brian McConnachie and my summer sound is the clicking sound made by cicadas. I just heard this sound again last week and it brought me back to my summer childhood spent on the North Fork of Long Island.

My mother, who was the source of a lot of my childhood mythology, told me what the clicking really meant. She said, if you count the number of clicks, each click being a degree of temperature, that was how hot it would get that day.

And I would do just that.

(SOUNDBITE OF CICADA)

MCCONNACHIE: It would usually take me into the 90s. Sounds like it's going to be a scorcher.

I then spread my knowledge to my friends - the amazing sharing between man and bug. When we'd hear one starting, we'd all go silent.

(SOUNDBITE OF CICADA)

MCCONNACHIE: Then we'd ask, what did you get? Ninety-three. I got a 95. I got 95, too.

It wasn't until years later I finally woke up to the world of Celsius and Fahrenheit and asked myself, how did they know to give the temperature in Fahrenheit or are they just making it up as they go along and no matter what, it's always going to be in the 90s? And does South America get Celsius and, if so, who taught our bugs Fahrenheit?

But you know what, we shouldn't worry. They seem to know what they're doing and we should just leave it at that.

(SOUNDBITE OF CICADA)

BLOCK: The summer sound of cicadas from Brian McConnachie.

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