Country Sounds.
I sat and sewed on the deck in the shade
The warm still air was filled with sounds
The cicada orchestra played a common song
Keruru took a solo turn close by
Changing his diet from Miro to Puriri.
Close up view of Puriri berries ( Vitex lucens ) About the size of small cherries.
I have never seen so many berries on our trees. The native wood pigeon - " Keruru" gorges on them. (I'm still trying to get a really good photo of one )
Still some Puriri flowers too.
The cicadas are pests to us. They pee and sooty mould grows on the deposit.
Which matters when it is on the Kiwifruit as sooty mould is not allowed. 
Skins where the grubs have crawled from the soil (after as many as 7 years, depending on conditions ) and clung to anything they can find while they emerge as an adult Cicada.
Look closely there is an adult Cicada drying it's wings on the branch.
They are doubly insulting things cause they pee as they fly along and sometimes it lands on me!
( it must be the season for there to be abundant Puriri and Miro berries and millions of Cicadas. In the South Island of NZ the red Rata trees are flowering better than they have in years ( partly the pest control of the possums but partly the season )
5 comments:
Your pictures and descriptions fill me with longing for warmer weather as I sit here waiting for yet another round of snow tonight. We have cicadas here too, and their buzzing sound seems part of summer. Of course, I don't have to worry about them spoiling my fruit!
Thank you Ali, what am amazing discription you paint of the sounds I could almost feel them
The cicadas are here also at night and I will think on them differently from now on...peeing everywhere.
So lush and green. Sigh. I think I'll have to go down under next winter (summer)...
Pee as they fly, I wouldn´t wan´t to have them around me!
Lovely photos Ali. We have thousands of cicadas here- sometimes the sound is deafening, if we are sitting outside. Our son was to be seen leaping about in the garden swatting at branches to shut them up!
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