Katydids love Salvias, yes katydids do. While it’s true that katydids aren’t considered particularly beneficial in agriculture, just thinking about their raspy thrumming chorus and the chirrupy humming night song of other insects brings back memories of velvety warm summer nights on a chill winter day.

Writing at the Bug Squad blog of the University of California, Davis, Kathy Keatley Garvey, a communications specialist with the Entomology Department of the University of California, Davis, last spring snapped photos of a katydid enjoying a Salvia in full, pink bloom in her backyard. The insect reminded Garvey of her father, who nicknamed her Katydid in childhood.

Two months later, on the opposite side of the nation, naturalist Wil Hershberger captured a chorus of katydids before storm in West Virginia. You can hear them and the storm rolling in at The Music of Nature website. It’s a good place to visit when you want to close your eyes and listen to soothing symphonies of birds, bees, frogs and other wildlife.