Tick-tocks. Or Cicadas, if you call them that. Ever noticed how they start earlier if the day is going to be hot?
The other day there where a few clouds around and it was a fair bit cooler when a cloud went in front of the sun. Every time the sun went behind a cloud, they'd shut up - starting again when it came out. I wonder if they are temperature activated?
The fucken thing that really gets me about them, is how you can be driving along at 80kmh and they are all ticking and tocking at the same time along the sides of the road. Does this extend across oz? Does the head tictok go "ok , wait for it, wait for it - and one, and two, - don't fuck it up this time Freddy - and three..... "
Noisy cunts.
The other day there where a few clouds around and it was a fair bit cooler when a cloud went in front of the sun. Every time the sun went behind a cloud, they'd shut up - starting again when it came out. I wonder if they are temperature activated?
The fucken thing that really gets me about them, is how you can be driving along at 80kmh and they are all ticking and tocking at the same time along the sides of the road. Does this extend across oz? Does the head tictok go "ok , wait for it, wait for it - and one, and two, - don't fuck it up this time Freddy - and three..... "
Noisy cunts.
posted by rackorf at 10:13 PM
11 Comments:
The temperature/light idea you have sounds plausible. However, regarding the apparent ticking and tocking in unison ... my guess is that you are just hearing it that way because you know what the rhythmic pattern is and so your ear is attuned to that. It's what your mind is expecting to hear and since there will always be in a random white noise of 'ticking' and 'tocking,' you hear a particular rhythmic pattern, which is also there.
Just a thought. I could be fucken cunty wrong, though.
As it is, what would just what would a simultaneous 'tick' and 'tock' sound like?
Perceptions are funny that way. For instance, it has only been in the last 5 years or so that scientists who study stuff like this think they've found out why the Moon and Sun look bigger on the horizon. It has nothing to do with atmospheric effects -- looking at the two thru a straw, for instance (well, maybe just the Moon for eye safety sake), they will subtend the same 0.5 degrees regardless of their sky position.
Nor does it have to do with a land versus water horizon since the water horizon typically will have no intervening objects for 'comparison,' since it is often ascribed to a comparison of the solar or lunar disk with distant land objects such as trees, buildings, or even topography.
Rather, it is a perception thing: your mind 'expects' an object on the horizon to be far away and since the Moon and Sun you intuitively know are both very far away, your eyes (mind) see (perceive) them to be larger than when there is no horizon (as when they are high in the sky).
I know what rackorf means, except with frogs. We have a wetlands below our house & in the summer at night you hear hundreds of frogs croaking in some kind of unison. The Fuckers! ( I love this cursing) What seems weird is sometimes They all stop at once, then they start up again all at once. It seems orchestrated to me. Like they are singing together.
BTW, rackorf. found a carnivorus snail the other day but he was still in hibernation. I haven't forgotten about it.
I live by the sea, in the suburbs, and those cicadas are here too but I would have described the noise/singing as whirring. Different type of cicadas maybe? I just looked it up on google search and heres a fact I didn't know. There are more than 200 Australian species of cicadas.
The neighbours next to us have a small pond and they introduced some frogs into it. They make a call that sounds like hollow wood being tapped.. donk ...donk..donk...bloody donk. Bloody annoying!!!! Some nights hubby says he's going to pour petrol into their pond but as much as I hate listening to them I won't let him kill 'em. I figure the cats will do that for us eventually.
Arc - I reckon that you are fucken cunty wrong about the rhthyms - these cunts get pretty fucken loud, up to 120 dB apparently - tic fucken tok (well actually more of a tic tic)- as to the relative percieved sizes of the sun and moon - I'd never noticed - except for sometimes when the moon is particularly large and yellow/orange colored (harvest moon???? i've heard the term somewhere) - I'd always thought that it must be at a close point in its orbit?
Subtend???
l>t - cursing - hahaha - is fucken great, should be a lot fucken more of it...looking forward to seeing the carniverous snail := can we see it eating something? an elk?
Frogs are generally pretty good guards at night, they go quiet when things come along. I like the sound of frogs, the happy, moquito eating little cunts.
debs - don't you just have canetoads over there? A better use for the petrol would be on the cats. _ Do you know how to make a cat go WOOF? hahaha
anyway good on ya for sticking up for them if they are frogs.
It is amazing when you start to look at the insects around us - I like to look at the various types of bugs on bush flowers
Well, then, you have to explain how literally millions of cicadas can all tick-tock in rhythm. I still think it's because your ear is attuned to the sound they make and is looking for a pattern. It's not like cicadas around here that go, "Tsch - Tsch - Tsch-Tsch - TschTschTschTsschTssschTssszzzz" so it is long enuf to hear a particular one and overlapping ones.
The Harvest Moon around this part of the planet is in late August. Each full moon has some native American or folkloric name.
The Moon's orbit around the Earth is nearly circular and when it is slightly farther away, it should also be smaller when high up in the sky. It is by a few tens of arc seconds but not enuf to be noticeable except during a total solar eclipse, in which case you have an annular one. The color has to do with the amount of atmosphere the light is traversing (Rayleigh scattering -- the same reason the sky is blue) and any haze in the air.
In this case, subtends means to stretch across a portion of sky ... The sky is 180 degrees from horizon to horizon ... there are 60 arc seconds in 1 arc minute and 60 arc minutes in 1 degree, or 3600 arc seconds in 1 degree and thus 10,800 arc minutes or 648,000 arc seconds across the sky from horizon to horizon.
The Sun and Moon subtend -- coincidentally -- 0.5 degrees on average or 30 arc minutes or 1800 arc seconds.
A star subtends on average a few tenths of an arc second. Jupiter and Venus both subtend about 1 arc minute. Thus, they appear about the size of a coin at 500 feet, a very bright coin, or one of Nooft's eyes, the glazed over one.
our plan(my crazy brother & me are planning to have it eat a worm as we take pictures of it.
Debstar please don't kill the frogs! We need the frogs. they are dissappearing from parts of the world & that's not good for the planet.
'Cicadas also often sing in chorus, which makes it more difficult for a predator to locate an individual.' - quote from Aust. government fauna website. When they do this at 120dB, (the treshhold of pain), they are loud enough to hear tic- ticking - even at 80km/h - any faster and the wind noise covers them up. Interesting about the meaning of subtend - how is distance to the object worked out, some sort of timed reflection maybe? I'll be taking a photo of the moon next time it appears "big" and comparing with when it's "not". Not that I don't beleive you - just for my own interest.
hahahaha - eating a worm, i've gotta see that!! ( an elk would have been better though, or maybe a cat)
Frogs are pretty good indicators of the health of the ecosystem. Good on ya frogs. I like them :)
Just realized that I haven't 'cursed'in this comment yet. Fuck it all, what a cunt.
Don't worry l>t I won't kill any frogs. Promise. I won't kill cats either but I wouldn't be sad to see them go up in a puff of smoke.
Perhaps they really do sing in chorus then afterall.
There is an easier way ... when the Moon is low on the horizon ... after the feral boar roundup and kill ritual and kangaroo sock hop chase ... look at it through a straw or something whose hole is just large enuf for the disk to appear in full (at least not too big of a hole). Then try when it is overhead. There should be no difference. In fact, there is no difference.
Subtend just refers to the size of an object from a distance. I think it's just a visual thing. The sky is broken up into degrees/minutes/seconds. Not sure if there is more to it than that.
Talking about introduced pests like cane toads..... About 2 years ago we started to get a large number of gekkos around the place. At night in particular they make a short loud clicking noise. Everyone said 'aren't they cute' and don't try to kill them but they are introduced from Asia, they have come in handy killing the pesky insects like flies & mossies. Definately less of those around here but while that is good for humans its not so great for the rest of the eco-enviornment. Now that I know that they are introduced I hit them with fly spray. That makes short work of them.
Hubby said he first noticed them in Weipa about 3-4 years ago so they are travelling south pretty quickly.
Have you got them in WA yet?
We do have geckos, but the ones we have are the same ones we have always had.
Going on the rest of the feral things and how they spread, it won't be long before we get them over here.
Maybe you could post a piccy of one so that I can recognise them when they get here.
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