Crickets, Bats [but no Cricket bats].

Cricket on rock outcrop at Cedar Hill



Restless Bush Cricket - male - Shakespeare Garden




A crevice at the base of a step in Shakespeare Garden

Cricket that came out of that crevice

Very small, one-legged cricket [female -- see ovipositor] that came out of the same crevice, on nearby pavement in Shakespeare Garden

Cricket Hunting

Photographing crickets is a challenging task. Though they've been singing throughout Central Park since the last days of July, and though their song sometimes seems to be coming from somewhere tantalizingly nearby, they are notoriously elusive creatures. If you get just a hair too close they cease singing and a few seconds later they'll resume, from a different place. Rarely do they pose for portraits.

I went for a cricket and katydid walk around the park on Monday evening [ 9/25/06] with Jay Holmes, Senior Educational Supervisor at the American Museum of Natural History.

We heard at least six different cricket songs. Near the Polish Statue at Turtle Pond we also heard the faint tick-tick-tick of an angle-winged Katydid.By dint of a lot of patience, and the museum man's sharp eyes and ears, we managed to spot and photograph four different species of crickets. The Katydid was somewhere high in a tree; not a chance of getting his picture.

I can only identify one of the four: the Restless Bush Cricket, which the Mothers-rhymes-with-authors have seen before and identified with the help of Nick Wagerik. It is responsible for the steady buzz you hear as you pass bushes in Strawberry Fields, in front of the Delacorte Theater, at the Shakespeare Garden, and many other flower beds in the park.

I've posted pictures of the three unknown crickets on Bug Guide, a great web resource for nature lovers wishing to get a name for mystery spiders and insects they've seen and photographed. Here's a link, in case you want to send in your own pictures. [They only want photos of live specimens!] You have to register, but it's well worth the trouble.
http://bugguide.net

PS Rob Jett's bats
If there's one critter harder to photograph than a cricket it's a hunting bat . I wouldn't even try, though there are still many bats flying around the park's gardens and waterbodies at dusk. I was amazed to see that a Prospect Park naturalist and blogger, Robb Jett, succeeded in capturing [digitally] two Little Brown Bats as they circled around a meadow in the Brooklyn park. Below are his photos, by permission. And you might enjoy checking out his website:
http://citybirder.blogspot.com/

Little Brown Bats, caught on the wing in Prospect Park