Cricket Swan Song
In searching for a new fly pattern to tie, I came upon a McPhail cricket pattern. So, as part of my regular practice, I researched the cricket.
The cricket is quite a marvel. It includes more than 2,400 species, with a worldwide distribution. Therefore, almost everyone on planet has experienced its musical chirping, primarily from the males attempting to attract mates and define territory.
The cricket is a shy creature, its presence almost always detected auditorily through its chirping. When I was young, I heard many a folktale from my grandparents about a cricket’s ability to predict the weather and reveal the outside temperature. I discovered, in my research, an actual formula for how to interpret the cricket’s message. If you count the chirps for 15 seconds and add 40, you get the Fahrenheit temperature. So, 1 chirp in 15 seconds + 40 = 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
When I think about the natural world and temperature, global warming and its impacts on the natural order inevitably surface. Having children has intensified my concerns and I worry about global warming’s apocalyptic implications.
So, I went dark and researched the temperature that kills our species and found it is about 122°F. I applied the above formula. For a cricket to broadcast this temperature, it would have to chirp 5.4 chirps per second. However, this calculation is only hypothetical since the cricket’s swansong would come sooner than ours as most die between 96-100°F.
Art is not science, although the creative process is much the same. Science seems a bit more restrictive to me in messaging because it must abide by natural laws. Art has more latitude.