I believe the cicadas have made an early entry this summer to rack my nerves. I'm finding the blue/green ones on my front porch * alive. The heat has made them surface I'm guessing. Maybe the raccoons will eat them all up .
Oh, I hated, and - at the same time, strangely - loved those things while living in Texas. They would drive me nuts, but then, they didn't appear often, so they were also appreciated.
We were discussing cicadas on the August thread, so I just happen to read about them. You may be hearing what they call "dog day" cicadas that show up every year in late summer. They claim cicadas are the loudest insects on the planet. And the dog day cicada is among the loudest. Reaching near 100 decibels close up. There aren't as many of these annual cicadas as there are when some of the 17, (13, etc,) year cicadas show up. If there were they say the sound would be overwhelming. I like the sound now. But when I was a kid it meant the end of summer and school starting.
This year, 2024, we are supposed to have 2 infestations of cicadas who only come out once in ever 20 years or so, and this dual infestation has not happened for the last several hundred years, according to what I have been reading. Some will be in Tennessee, and we have one of the batches that will overlap into Alabama, but the center of the two batches will be around Ohio and Illinois, if I remember right. It appears that this kind of infestation also happened hundreds of years ago, and here is an old picture of either cicadas or locust happening around a total eclipse.
For the last several days, we have been trying to figure out what the noise we have been hearing , was coming from. Now, we believe that it is because of the huge influx of the cicadas this year, way worse than we have ever seen them before, and the noise never stops. We used to be able to tell it was coming from trees around, and differentiate the sounds of individual ones even, but this is far worse. This picture is what it looks like underneath our neighbors tree, and this is only a small patch of the ground, because I wanted to zoom in close enough for people to tell it was cicadas they were looking at.
The trees are starting to buzz with the sound of cicadas here too. It is going to get really noisy! I think this is the first year we will have both the 17 year cicada and the 13 year cicada at the same time. I read that it hasn’t happened since Thomas Jefferson was president. Right now, we have the 17 year cicada and they are literally all over the place! My driveway, trees, lawn furniture, boat, and everything else is slowly being covered with the first arrival of cicadas; some are crawling, some are dead, and some are just a shell of themselves. They are hanging-crawling onto everything! I walked to my mailbox and I had one on my pant leg when I came into the house. I don’t really don’t mind the sound of them--- yet. I guess when the 13 year cicadas show up too, I might not be as chilled about it. It’s just another unique thing going on this year in my part of the world, along with the total solar eclipse we experienced. I guess if this was during the ancient times it would be considered some bad omens.
They are definitely all over this year, and the two extra batches are making it so much worse. I think a few places might get both, but mainly southern states get one group and more northern states get the other group.
The 17 year cicada sound reminds me of the sound of flying saucers in old TV movies. Remember those old black and white horror movies on Saturday afternoon TV back in the early 60’s? Mars Invades Earth, or something like that. There was always 100’s of flying saucers headed for earth with that high pitch sound. We have our regular scheduled cicadas that have recently arrived now too.
It is hard to be outside in the sunshine with the smell of dead cicada bodies lying around everywhere, especially all around the bases of the trees. There are millions of them decaying. We may need a backhoe to remove them. The decaying smell is heavy in the air with the wind blowing, ugh! They are zooming around now too; trying to land on us humans. Apparently, they like the sound of lawn mowers, weed eaters, blowers, etc., thinking it’s a mating call. I think the seventeen year cicadas will be leaving around July, and the regular seasonal ones won’t be gone till Fall. The sound of the zillion cicadas does not bother me. I can tune that out. But stench all of those dead cicadas lying around....
My neighbors were just telling me of restaurants that were serving them when the last 17 year mega-brood hit. I don't recall humans eating them, but I know that dogs stuff themselves until they get sick. I guess you could let them swarm in an air fryer 'til done.