On Saturday September 12, 2009, New Yorkers were invited to ‘stop and listen’ to the nocturnal chirping of crickets. The goal was to survey the presence of several species of crickets and katydids across the five boroughs and beyond. The collaboration between several hundreds of volunteers and scientists based at the American Museum of Natural History and U.S. Geological Survey Patuxent Wildlife Research Center allowed the construction of a preliminary map showing the distribution of 7 species of Crickets and Katytids spanning over 300 localities. This type of event is termed ‘Bioblitz’ and provides instant snapshots of the natural world, which can later serve as baseline in ecological studies.

‘Cricket Crawl’ is a 32:19 long audio documentary about this event, which aired for the first time on free103point9 internet radio as part of the Giant Ear))) ‘back to school sounds’ show on Sunday, September 27 at 7pm.

Back to School sounds was curated by sound artist Mikhail Iliatov, a member of New York Society for Acoustic Ecology.

The official NYC Cricket Crawl event’s webpage is available here.