I have seen the RainBird

[ComputerGuy]

Woke up at dawn to the clack-clack-clack sound that the rainbirds make before they swing into the long, wild scream. And the sound of meowing. The cat was offering up his latest success: he had a gigantic bug in his mouth. I've never seen anything like this before: big, ugly, noisy!

The cat dropped it and it buzzed around the floor using its gossamer wings; I'm guessing the legs were chewed up. The noise continued unabated. I grabbed it and, if I hadn't been in a state of morning stupor, I woulda taken a photo with my cell phone. But the main objective at this point was to get it and the cat outside.

It had stopped making any noise; I had a pretty good grip on it. It felt as hard as a rock. I blew on it just before tossing it out, and the clacking started up again. No wonder you can hear these things from across a field.

Anyway, now I know for sure what they are:

[giltner68]

You got one. My cat's favorite trick is to bring in a katydid about 4am and turn it lose in the bedroom and then he and I chase it as it flaps around, me falling over things because I'm mostly still asleep. I think this is the 17 year emergence of cicadas in the NE.

[bmh]

Beauty is all in the eye of the beholder. In France , Spain and Italy, te cicadas are the symbol of summer, warm Mediterranean climate and everyone loves them.

Aesope wrote the wonderful fable about the ant and the cicada. We could not wait to hear the cicadas in the morning which met we would have a wonderful warm day. The hotter it got and the lower they were on the pine trees and we could see them which would get us very excited as kids.

I am sure the cats think them as beautiul too...