BBC Africa with David Attenborough - episode 1 of 6 - Kalahari
Quelea is a small genus of passerine birds that belongs to the weaver family Ploceidae, confined to Africa. These are small-sized, sparrow- or finch-like gregarious birds, with bills adapted to eating seeds. Queleas may be nomadic over vast ranges; the red-billed quelea is said to be the most numerous bird species in the world. wiki
The red-billed quelea (Quelea quelea) is the world's most abundant wild bird species, with an estimated adult breeding population of 1.5 billion pairs.[2] Some estimates of the overall population have been as large as 10 billion.[3]The entire population is found in sub-Saharan Africa and is generally absent from deeply forested regions and the southern reaches of South Africa. It is a small passerine bird of the weaver family Ploceidae.
Red-billed quelea live and breed in huge flocks which can take up to 5 hours to fly past. wiki
Armoured Bush Cricket attacks on nestling Red-billed Quelea mirror:
Whilst inspecting a breeding colony of Red-billed Queleas, Quelea quelea, amongst Acacia mellifera trees 8km north of Gumare, Botswana (19°17’36”S, 22°10’48”E) on 12 March 1999, we observed that many nests had Armoured Bush Crickets (also known as Armoured Ground Crickets, Corn Crickets or Koringkrieke), Acanthoplus discoidalis (Walker), on them. Closer inspection revealed that many of these insects were entering the nests or were already inside. Several nestlings in these nests were bleeding. We were thus able to confirm a report by Mr Kekopamang Mbwe, a scout of the Division of Plant Protection, Ministry of Agriculture, Botswana, that the crickets attack quelea nestlings. Mr Mbwe reported that they even kill very young birds, but we did not see nestlings dying from the attacks. Similarly, at a colony in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa, Anderson et al. (1994) suspected that A. discoidalis were killing Red-billed Quelea nestlings but only saw the insects eating dead chicks in the nests or corpses of fledglings pinioned on thorns. Anderson et al. did report, however, an observation by Richard Liversidge that the crickets killed nestlings of the Desert Cisticola, Cisticola aridula. In addition, Steyn and Myburgh (2000) found seven Armoured Bush Crickets in a nest of the Rufous-eared Warbler, Malcorus pectoralis, near Brandvlei, also in the Northern Cape Province, and blamed the crickets for frequent disappearances of chicks from nests.
Acanthoplus discoidalis (armoured katydid, armoured ground cricket, armoured bush cricket, corn cricket, setotojane[2] or koringkrieke) is a species of katydid that is native to Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa. They are wide-bodied, flightless and can grow to around 5 cm. Their thorax is covered in sharp spines and they have a pair of strong biting jaws. They are able to defend themselves against predators in an unusual manner bysquirting haemolymph (insect blood) out of their bodies.[3] Their populations peak in autumn and their bodies often litter roads during this time. When deprived of protein and salt they can become cannibalistic. wiki
Do cicadas sing at night? : In most cases they do not. Most of the time when you hear an insect at night it is a cricket or katydid.
However, there are a few cases when cicadas will sing at night:
Comments:
(1) I think the answer may vary by region. Here in East Texas the cicadas chorus
at night
(2)
The several trillion cicada’s that unfortunately inhabit the little forest we
now live in, in Auckland New Zealand most certainly make the most deafening din
every single night.
They are rattling and buzzing like a huge electrical grid all around us from
before I want to wake, to around 9pm. We have about 2 hours respite before the
unwanted, deafening, cacophony begins again and continues all night and all day
long.
I thought it might be the moon confusing the buggers, but it can be overcast and
they still relentlessly rattle and buzz to several decibels pitch. (Angela
— February 22, 2014)
(3) Angela is correct, Auckland has been overrun by the loud continuous sound of
cicadas chirruping! both day and night, relentless in 2014. The night time
crickets can hardly be discerned above the cacophony of the cicadas. However, in
previous years, this has not been the case, They were strictly diurnal insects..
It’s a strange change in habit for them… Interesting to say the least.
More: Cricket Radio: Tuning In the Night-Singing Insects & http://www.cricketradiobroadcast.com/