If it's outside, perhaps it is a cicada?
On Aug 22, 2005, at 7:50 AM, Bob Shell wrote:
On Sunday, August 21, 2005, at 09:35 PM, Mark Roberts wrote:
My SO and I moved to Pittsburgh 3 years ago. Every summer,
beginning in
August, we've heard (but not seen) what we have taken to calling a
"clickety bug". It makes an click-click-click-click-click noise
(from 5
to 25 clicks) and then pauses for a minute or more. Unlike
crickets, for
example, these bugs don't seem to exist in great numbers, as we can
usually detect no more than 4-5 of them in the immediate area. Any
suggestions as to what it might be? Just curious - and we have
been for
3 years ;-)
Indoors or outdoors?
There is something called the Deathwatch Beetle, a wood borer that
is sometimes found in old houses. It makes a clicking sound that
people used to think sounded like a pocket watch or clock ticking.
There was a superstition that this was the countdown to someone in
the house's death. The beetle makes the sound by banging its head
against the wall of its tunnel in the wood.
If outdoors, I'm not sure. Probably something in the grasshopper
or cricket clan. My specialty was butterflies, and they're not
very noisy!
Bob
