It’s only at this time of year in northern Illinois that we get to hear the changing of the “chorister” guards as day melds into night.  In the heat of the day, annual or dog-day cicadas screech from the tops of trees. Some of them lingeri in their singing until dusk just as the crickets begin chirping from below.

When I hear these sounds, I’m taken back to the days when my sister and I were visiting our aunt and uncle. We swam in the pool during the day as the cicadas whined. Then when we went to sleep with the windows open, the crickets’ songs lulled us to dreamland.

Crickets and cicadas are both insects, but each with its own lifestyle and method of singing.