The sound of silence - why no chirping on Irish summer nights?

20-08-2022 6:15am #1

It’s a staple of summer nights in much of the northern hemisphere to hear the loud chirping of crickets. In Ireland, on a summer night in the countryside you might hear the faraway cry of a vixen, but not much else. Do we lack chirping crickets in Ireland? Is our weather too cold for them or something like that?

bad2thebone · 20-08-2022 6:28am

I hear them the odd time in the Burren or else they're grass hoppers. But I was awoken this morning to a few hundred starling's on my roof. Sounded like a pipe burst in my attic and water was flowing everywhere. The chirping was intense lol

20-08-2022 6:36am

we don't have crickets in Ireland.

There is no nighttime chirping from birds as they are asleep. In April and May we get the birdsong early in the morning , as early as 4.30am but thats it.... from mid-Summer onwards its quiet.

magicbastarder · 20-08-2022 11:49am

we don't have crickets in Ireland.

"There are ten species of Orthoptera native to Ireland, seven grasshoppers and three bush-crickets "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Orthoptera_species_of_Ireland

HazeDoll · 20-08-2022 11:56am

There's lots of chirping in the undergrowth around my house at night. I have lots of rough ungrazed grassland, that might be the reason.

It has eased off a lot in recent days as the evenings are much colder but at the height of summer it was constant.

HazeDoll · 20-08-2022 12:02pm

And while I'm boasting:

During the day I hear curlews and buzzards. In the evenings I hear woodcocks and ravens. At night I can hear a long-eared owl, stoats and foxes.

In the spring I was having a war with a cuckoo that picked a tree outside my bedroom window and cucked and ood as loud as he could from about 5am. It's like a car alarm going off.

Citizen Six · 20-08-2022 9:23pm

I hear them every year in a certain part of Glasnevin. Not sure why.

Birdnuts · 21-08-2022 1:45am

No doubt nights are quieter since intensive farming practices spread across the country over the last 60 years or so along with the mass destruction of BNM bogs, other wetlands etc. in that time. The loss of birds like Corncrakes, Quails, various breeding waders etc. along with the massive reduction in Grasshoppers, Crickets and other insect species in general all feeds into this sad state of affairs:(

JustJoe7240 · 21-08-2022 4:56am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119500228#Comment_119500228

Im surprised this took as long as it did.

Still stihl waters 3 · 21-08-2022 5:26am

Put simply it's down to intensive farming, clearing land for development would also have some knock on effects but not as much, when you see machinery in fields clearing land and ditches and cutting trees to make grazing land the price we pay for increased agriculture is the gradual erosion of wildlife and the noise and activities that go with it

This is all within the last 50 years due to the mechanisation of farming, increased nitrates, pesticide and slurry use has killed off the natural wildflowers that were abundant and kept a balance, that balance is now off kilter with little being done to rectify it, put simply the reason you're not hearing anything is because of us

But it's not too late yet, I keep 7 acres totally organic every year for hay, absolutely no fertiliser or slurry in the last 6 years only graze it well back before the winter and let it grow naturally until ready to harvest,where once there was a yearly fight with rushes is now a field of flowers that's a sight to behold, I couldn't believe the change in the last 3 to 4 years in the meadow, its alive with activity and life, if every landowner set aside just 5 percent of grassland for chemical free farming we might see a return of bees and wildlife, but knowing human inclination to do the opposite of what's good for us I don't hold out much hope

Wishbone Ash · 21-08-2022 5:37am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119496536#Comment_119496536

Just curious but is 'birdsong' the term used when the noise in pleasant? All I get is the squawking of seagulls and it usually begins at 2am particularly in summer months. Is that their version of birdsong?

21-08-2022 12:10pm

I grew up surrounded by three very old unimproved meadows bounded with overgrown hawthorn hedges which also had ash, elm, and hazel in them, and even then the crickets didn’t chirp. The agriculture was far from intensive.

Go to almost any American suburb in June or July, and the sound of the crickets is deafening. Surely such places are even worse for biodiversity than intensive farmland here.

magicbastarder · 21-08-2022 1:38pm

heard some crickets or grasshoppers while cycling along the runway at dublin airport today. the grass was not very long.

22-08-2022 8:06am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119500277#Comment_119500277

ha ha, I'm sure it is, each to their own! I never called grasshoppers Crickets and I replied a few days ago saying we don't have crickets in Ireland. If the OP meant grasshoppers then I stand corrected. However I never heard them at night time, on a sunny afternoon and evening yes, but not at night like you would in the US.

I was hiking in the Mourne Mountains yesterday, a warm sunny day and the hills were alive with the buzzing of bees, grasshoppers and other insects and there were plenty of dragon flies and butterflies everywhere. It was bliss!

Day Lewin · 22-08-2022 8:12am

Out of doors, the night walker in summer will also hear the rustling of a hedgehog, snuffle-riffle along the hedge line among the dead grasses.

But that cricketty chirrupping isn't a night time thing in Ireland, except for the singing crickets in the hearth, now very rare.

No Cicadas.

whisky_galore · 26-08-2022 8:16am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119504054#Comment_119504054

My father said the crickets used come into the house, near the fireplace to sing. He maintained it was the DDT, that wonder powder of the time, killed them off.

The sound of silence - why no chirping on Irish summer nights?

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