Probably Katydids. Don't know much about'em but they are a grasshopper looking insect, hangs out in trees and livens up the late evenings and nights with their 'fiddlin'.

When I think of loud noises in SC, I remember the little green tree frogs. Good grief, they were noisy.

We have cicadas here in Alabama, but not the 17 year variety. Southern cicadas are much more benign than the damaging Northern 17 year bunch. I don't think I've heard them yet where I live, but I haven't been sitting out on the back porch much this season.

Drippy, if you think they are loud now, wait until August when they reach their peak in dry, hot weather. Country folk in Northern Alabama generically called them locust. I listened to them as I watered one evening this week. I can remember when I was a kid, we didn't have air conditioning so we slept with the windows open and I would listen to the locust sing in the trees on moonlit nights. Thanks for bringing back fond memories. We'll have a full moon this weekend, so get outside after dark and listen to them and watch the lightening bugs.

Tsmith, the lightning bugs here are amazing! We NEVER had this many in MA - I absolutely love being out poolside at night, under the stars, watching the lightning bugs. And the locusts are cool sounding - I'll have to get DH or DS to sample them (for recording, LOL, not dinner).

Another thing I noticed, when I first moved to AL last September, is an amazing number of (and different kinds) butterflies. I'm not up on state history/mottos and the like yet, but I think Alabama's nickname should be "The Butterfly State".

You sound like me when I first moved to Huntsville from coastal SC. I never thought that I would leave the beautiful coastal region willingly and that if I DID leave it, I'd yearn for my old home. NOT!

I love Northern Alabama more than any place I've ever lived, and that's saying a lot.

It's good to know others appreciate Alabama too. I was born in Winston County and raised in Mobile. When I worked on boats in south Texas during the 80s and there was a bad drought, dust was a quarter inch thick on every blade of grass. They had locks on the water pipes. So when I drove home and crossed the state line from Mississippi, I was almost weeping as I read, WELCOME TO ALABAMA THE BEAUTIFUL. It was so lush and dark green my heart just thrilled at it.

In 2005 I rekindled an old relationship with the man I was engaged to 50 years before. He is a native of Massachusetts. And for the time since we married, we've maintained houses and gardens in both states. Soon to end, when he sells his cape up there next spring. But I learned how to deal with a seasonal garden--something we don't really have down here in Mobile. Totally outside my comfort zone at first, but it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to plant things that do not prosper here.

So all you repotted, or transplanted, yanks and coastal folks, I'm glad you appreciate what you found here. Glad to have you as part of the family. The infusion of new blood brings vitality.

Thanks for the heartwarming welcome, Moccasinlanding! This is all new to me, and I still miss my family, old friends, and ocean terribly, but I am a "bloom where you are planted" type (and am often heard yelling that to my garden plants, LOL), and decided right away I would find all the good stuff. I expected - and was delighted with - no snow shoveling, woohoo!

However, I was unaware before I got here that the term "sky blue" must have been invented in Alabama. Lynard Skynard (sp?) wasn't kidding!

This is a fun webpage with recordings of different katydid songs. Scroll down to the links to the recordings. If you hit "Home" at the top of the page, it will take you to the full "Singing Insects of North America" page.

Here is a link that might be useful: Katydid songs and info