If you are interested in birding or nature photography, Wil Hershberger needs no introduction. He has been active in the Potomac Valley Audubon Society for many years and leads local nature photography and birdsong workshops. His photographs have been published in magazines and calendars and were exhibited at the Potomac Valley Audubon Society nature art show at the National Conservation Training Center.

“I’ve always been interested in nature photography,” said Hershberger, who has been snapping pictures since he was a child. He remembers taking pictures with his 126 Kodak camera in summer camp. “I got serious about photography by the time I was in high school, when I got my first 35 mm camera and started taking slides,” he said.

Twenty years ago, his interest expanded to recording natural sounds. He was working as a contractor for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, studying a bird called the loggerhead shrike. The object was to locate the birds by playing recordings of their sounds into likely habitats where the birds might be found. The study was not successful. “Either the habitats were empty or the birds weren’t responding,” Hershberger recalled, but this didn’t dampen his enthusiasm.

In 1995 Hershberger attended a workshop on making recordings for the Library of Natural Sounds, sponsored by the Cornell University Ornithology Lab. He bunked with a man by the name of Steve Rannels, who was recording all sorts of sounds. “When birds weren’t singing, he was recording bug sounds,” said Hershberger.

Up until that time Hershberger had used cassette recorders, so this was his first chance to use digital recording equipment. He and Rannel recorded many insects, with the aim of producing an audio guide to insect sounds. When they learned that it would take two years to get it published through Cornell, they decided to do it themselves. They burned a CD, had a thousand copies made in Front Royal, and distributed it themselves over the next several years.

One day, Hershberger got a call from Lang Elliott, whom he had met at a party. Elliott is well known in the world of nature sound recording. His work is used in many museums and nature center exhibits. Elliott had seen their CD and had an idea for a book. At that time, Rannel was in poor health, so Hershberger joined Elliott to put out a book on singing insects.

The great outdoors is not always hospitable. In a recording session in an Ohio cemetery, Hershberger skinned a knee and it turned into a serious infection. In Canaan Valley, they heard what they thought was a very special insect singing out in the wet meadows. Elliott, armed with his recorder, stepped in a trench, up to his waist in muck, only to discover that the insect was a common one. In a Maryland Eastern Shore nature sanctuary, they suffered in 105 degree temperatures and airless humidity. “But we found our only saltmarsh katydid,” Hershberger reported triumphantly.

Hershberger explained that all of the insects shown in their book were photographed alive in the wild, on vegetation whenever possible. Some could be readily approached and photographed; others sang from hidden locations. They found some by spreading a sheet on the ground and shaking trees and bushes over it. Those living in leaf litter were found by homing in on the sound with a microphone, then tossing the leaf litter on a sheet and sorting through it. When they couldn’t get the perfect shot outdoors, they brought the insects and plants indoors.

Hershberger’s wife Donna fed the insects during the work for the book. They had 75 cages containing 100 insects. “The University of Florida said they would eat dry dog food, but they wouldn’t,” she reported. “They ate iceberg lettuce—they would not eat romaine!”

A book called Backyard Bugs by Robin Kittrel Laughlin, uniquely illustrated with photos of insects on stark white backgrounds, inspired Hershberger and Elliott to try that technique for some of their illustrations. Of course, the biggest problem was getting the insects to cooperate and pose. They used white boxes, with the insect on a white lazy Susan that could move when the insect moved.

Laboratory work on living insects is often accomplished by cooling the insects in a refrigerator to slow them down. However, Hershberger said that this did not work for them. As soon as the insects started to warm up, they got hyperactive as they tried to warm themselves. They ultimately found they could make the insects stay still by simply handling them and making them move around until they got tired.

The book with CD, seven years in the making, is The Songs of Insects by Lang Elliott and Wil Hershberger. Their web site www.musicofnature.com/songsofinsects/ has an on-line audio guide to insect songs and has been named among the “Best of the Bugs”—the top entomological websites—by the University of Florida Entomology & Nematology Department.

Hershberger lives in Berkeley County. He and his wife offer workshops in nature photography.