For those of you not from the midwest or areas where you experience this phenomenom, they are cyclical cicadas




They spend most of their lives underground.
Toward the end of their lives, they emerge and buzz around for a couple weeks. They find mates, lay eggs, and expire. Kind of like Salmon

When they emerge, they leave their old skin clinging to the tree trunk (or whatever's available). We would collect the skin shells when we were kids...it was fun to cling them on other people.





They predominate in older established neighborhoods. In suburban areas where the soil has been largely disturbed, they are less common. Where I live, there are several overlapping "broods." You got yer 17-year, yer 12- or 13-year, and others with shorter terms. Different batches/broods spend different amounts of time under ground. A few years back we had a convergence of broods and HUGE emergence that seemed to go on and on. Hopefully, this one will be brief.




They buzz loudly to attract mates. They also fly at folks pushing lawnmowers, folks using leaf blowers. They cling to peoples backs. They make bike riding interesting.

This brood is predominately red-eyed. Withing this brood, there will probably be the occassional blue-eyed one.

I recall in the past when there was a large emergence, some women tethered them and wore live cicadas as jewelry. Not for me.



These photos are of newly emerged cicadas, all taken at the same time. How do they do that? How do they all crawl out of the ground on the same day? These just broke out of their shells and are just acclimating and drying out. Soon they will be buzzing and flying around. They don't hang out on plants like this after they are fully awakened.

The sound of cicadas is the welcome sound of summer. They can be disconcerting when they land on you or fly into you but they are harmless. They eat nothing when they are above ground. Nonetheless, I may not be spending too much time in the back yard during the next 2 weeks. Should have mowed yesterday.