This is not my usual kind of photo blog entry. It’s more like the musings and photography of a backyard entomologist. This is a record of the cicada invasion in our yard. If you are not a fan of bugs in general or cicadas in particular, then go no further.
It is a good thing for us that cicadas do not eat after they emerge from the ground. If they did we would have no green left in our yard. The sheer number of them is overwhelming and they are everywhere. The sound is pretty loud during daylight hours and mercifully starts decreasing around 6:30 or 7:00 PM.
While they have googly eyes and wings they don’t appear to use either to their maximum potential. When they first emerge from the ground they look like this:
They will climb up any vertical surface when they are recently emerged from the ground, pant leg, house, wire fencing, car tires. And they will pick the most interesting places to shed their outer layer from a few inches to 12 feet off the ground. They seem to find the ends of branches very appealing.
Sometimes it everybody on one leaf.
And other times every body gets their own.
Once they've latched on the emerging starts.
After they are fully out there is a period of keeping the wings spread out and then closing them up. Following this there is more walking then flying going on however. In the early days one sees the cicadas walking up (and sometimes down) the tree trunks as if those big red eyes aren’t helping them much. They just walk until they run into something which sometimes causes them to fall to the ground. At which point they start their upward trajectory again—walking!
They eventually end up everywhere.
The exit doesn't always go as planned.
The following shot was taken at 8PM and the next one at 8AM the next day.
In the morning light.
Of course, they're not the only insects around.
In the early days the winged, bug-eyed creatures primarily crawl over everything. Eventually they get congregated in trees and bushes and the mating calling begins and gets incredibly loud. Only the males make a calling for a mate sound. It's during this period that they fly but not very far.
Getting ready to mate.
Mating
And then depositing the fertilized eggs in a small tree branch
There are so many of them that the slits in the branches become quite numerous and can lead to the branch breaking in the wind or rain.
It's like a haircut for a big tree but for saplings it can be pretty destructive.
There is a fungus that cicadas are prone to get.
As it progresses more and more of their abdomen falls off.
Spending all this time out in the yard documenting the life cycle of the cicada (this was Brood X which emerges every 17 years) led me to seeing other insects out and about.
And that's how I spent my spring! This opportunity won't repeat for 17 years at which point who knows what I'll be up to, if anything.