Cigale noise

[SaligoBay]

We have to raise our voices to talk to each other outside, people on the other end of the phone can hear them clearly, and my ears buzz for ages when I come back indoors, a bit like after a Motorhead concert.

I reckon our cigales are producing about 90 decibels, would that be right?



"In sound, decibels measure a scale from the threshold of human hearing, 0 dB, upward towards the threshold of pain, about 120-140 dB. As examples: the sound level in the average residential home is about 40 dB, average conversation is about 60 dB, typical home music listening levels are about 85 dB, a loud rock band about 110 dB, and a jet engine close up is 150dB."

[Bigmal<br><br>Love and Peace<br><br>Malcolm Armsteen]

Is it only your ears that are buzzin'?

Best Wishes

Malcolm Armsteen

[letrangere]

>
>We have to raise our voices
>to talk to each other
>outside, people on the other
>end of the phone can
>hear them clearly, and my
>ears buzz for ages when
>I come back indoors,

But isn't it one of the nicest sounds on earth? M.M. Kaye in one of her autobiographies uses the most exquisite word to describe this exquisite sound. It's pure onomatopoeia and I remember writing it down when I first came across it. Search as I can I can't find it tonight though. We have a tree immediately opposite - an Arabian something or the other - that is home to a trillion of them. Think I'll go outside and listen to them for a bit.

M

[Washy]

I love the noise, says 'summer' to me. Heard the first one on May first and noted it in my diary. We have an assortment of very large green and grey crickets/cicadas here and when they fly/hop/glide the largest look like small birds. Mind you a flying, Preying Mantis is even more spectacular.......

I did a very 'touristy' thing in Carcassonne last week, I bought a cicada sound box. It is a pretty box covered in a Provencal print design, when opened there is a straw hat inside and a cicada on the hat band, it is light sensitive and starts to chirrup, when closed it stopped. Unfortunately I dropped it and it would not stop Chirruping.....like those infernal musical birthday cards. Fortunately it was easy to fix.

[Mpprh]

Hi

It is noisy at home.

But sailing into the Calanques (Provencal fjords) it was much worse.

Peter
http://tlp.netfirms.com

[SaligoBay]

We've just made a young lady in a Paris office VERY happy on the phone.

There must be a gap in the market here, a special phone line is clearly in order.

Phone this number for a Taste of the South. Thrill to the sound of a billion cigales vibrating their abdomens in lusty unison.

If only I was more business-minded!