the last katydid’s
creaky love song
From a walk on a high portion of Tussey Mountain where fragments of the original, hemlock-dominated forest cover persist. I couldn’t decide whether they were the result of spotty cutting by 19th-century wood hicks, or simply that the boulder fields surrounding them keep deer numbers very low, allowing regeneration that mostly can’t happen on any more accessible location. At any rate, seeing all these hemlocks was well worth the climb, and I shot many, many photos. There were several lone katydids, spaced a quarter mile apart, so referring to this one as the last is a bit of a conceit, but it is very late in the season for these chorusing insects. I posted a full photo set from the walk to Facebook.
[UPDATE] My friend David Groff proposed a Japanese translation:
山の栂末螽斯の恋の歌
yama no tsuga sue kirigirisu no koi no uta
Woodrat photohaiku 