Cicadas, crickets and fireflies
8 cicadas, crickets and fireflies along the East Atlantic Flyway, from Norway to Angola: when each one peaks, where to go on your own, what it costs and what you will hear. Wild animals only, no zoos.
Best time, place by place
| Spectacle | Country | Peak | On your own? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Late-summer bush-cricket & grasshopper chorus | United Kingdom | 1 Aug – 31 Aug | You can go on your own |
| Cicadas of Provence | France | 1 Jul – 20 Aug | You can go on your own |
| Cicadas of Ticino and the Valais rock steppes | Switzerland | 5 Jul – 20 Aug | You can go on your own |
| Cicada summer of the Adriatic coast | Croatia | 1 Jul – 15 Aug | You can go on your own |
| Firefly nights | Italy | 25 May – 25 Jun | You can go on your own |
| Cicada summer chorus | Italy | 1 Jul – 25 Aug | You can go on your own |
| Cicadas of the Spanish pinewoods | Spain | 1 Jul – 20 Aug | You can go on your own |
| Bobiri forest: four hundred butterfly species on a May morning | Ghana | 1 May – 31 May | You can go on your own |
Where to go, north to south
Late-summer bush-cricket & grasshopper chorusLoud sewing-machine buzz of great green bush-crickets from coastal scrub; ticking of dark bush-crickets; the electric drone of Roesel's in rough grassland.
Cicadas of ProvenceThe Provence cliché done properly: Lyristes' continuous saw at 100+ dB from the pines, Cicada orni's pulsing ticks from the oaks, and a shift of species with the hour and the tree.
Cicadas of Ticino and the Valais rock steppesCicada orni ticking merging into a wall in the chestnut and oak woods, Lyristes pulsing from pines, grasshoppers on the steppe; in the Valais, bee-eaters and a föhn wind.
Cicada summer of the Adriatic coastContinuous Cicada orni ticking at 5–8 kHz merging into a shimmer, Lyristes plebejus's louder pulsing song from pines, cricket chorus at night, scops owl, sea.
Firefly nightsA visual spectacle: synchronised flashing over meadows. For sound, the early-summer night ambience — crickets, nightingales, and scops owls.
Cicada summer chorusWall-of-sound cicada chorus in pinewoods and olive groves, with pulsing, overlapping rhythms of different species.
Cicadas of the Spanish pinewoodsContinuous cicada chorus from Aleppo and stone pines — Cicada orni's ticking pulses over Lyristes' saw — with the sea and, at dusk, bush-crickets taking over.
Bobiri forest: four hundred butterfly species on a May morningMostly a visual spectacle: clouds of blues and swallowtails on the wet road, charaxes crashing into fermenting fruit. But the forest at dawn from the guesthouse veranda — hornbills, greenbuls, the whistles of the forest robin, cicadas at first light — is a genuine Upper Guinea chorus 30 km from Kumasi.