It always reminds me of the movie "Them," which scared the pants off me when I was a kid.

Ahh, this is a case where ignorance is bliss. We just lived through Brood II, and let me assure you that you have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA just how loud, annoying, damaging and generally ubiquitous cicadas can be. There were daylilies where I could barely see the leaves because they were covered with a combination of live cicadas, and discarded cicada shells. There are trees where *every* *single* branch of a certain cicada appropriate diameter is hanging brown and broken. The noise was continuous from dawn to dust, every day for about six weeks. When I mowed the lawn, I'd come inside with a couple of cicadas trapped in my hair.

The funny thing is that it wasn't nearly as bad this time as the previous time. Then we literally had six inches of dead cicada mulch under all the big trees. I remember asking if anybody knew the N-P-K analysis of cicadas, and people thought I was kidding.

Egad, I guess I'm not the only one that hates the little buggers, or considers them horror movie potential Michael, but mad gallica that sounds absolutely horrific! Was that one of the 7 year cycles (apparently every few years the 7 year cycle gets worse)? In my 20 years here I can't recall anything like the carnage you describe, which has nightmare written all over it. Our cicadas seem to be about the same each year, even in the 7-year cycles. Bug-phobic people must stay inside or something every 7 years then in NY, since having live OR dead cicadas in your hair is not for the faint of heart. It sounds like they didn't actively damage the plants and trees beyond breaking off the blooms and branches with their ugly little carcasses, but when something can damage your garden just by sitting in it (like a million well-intentioned but stupid Great Danes) you know you have a real problem.

Yep, so far you totally beat me in hating these creatures and you remind me as always that things can get worse! Is this a bad year, or was Brood II a previous year? Know that we sympathize!

Cynthia

Cynthia, what you mostly have is probably annual cicadas, which are all over the place but in moderate numbers. Here in the East we have these astonishing plagues of "periodical" ones in late spring-early summer. They are on cycles of 13 and 17 years but the populations aren't perfectly synchronized.This year's hatch didn't occur here in the mountains but we had them a few years ago.

I miss them. My childhood was in VA. I loved the soothing sounds of crickets at night. Cicada season was a delight. When I went off to college I had a cassette tape with cricket sounds (does that show my age?)

My adult life (until 8 yrs ago) was in Illinois. Lovely buggy sounds there too.

There's nothing here. Even as I compose this post, there is complete buggy silence. The most I can hope for is a forlorn, lost fly hopping to find an exit.

M

When they start to sing here it just reminds me that summer is dwindling down and winter will bee coming. We don't get hordes of them though thankfully.

I feel much like Seil; cicada song is the swan song of summer - it makes me feel a tiny bit melancholy and nostalgic for all those beautiful summer days passed. I do NOT think I would feel warm and fuzzy about the periodical cicadas, however; MG, that is quite a disturbing picture you paint.
(And I thought it was disgusting to have rose chafers tangled in my hair! Yikes!)

I love the sound. It signifies summer, warm, lazy nights. But a visiting friend heard them for the first time and thought he was hearing rattlesnakes.

You have some serious bugs out there. At night, we get mockingbird song and a few crickets here. Very sweet. This June, we drove through the woods in North Carolina and I rolled down the window to get a picture of the trees. Wow are those bugs loud!

I did like lightning bugs. I saw my first ones in Tennessee and Virginia. I really wish we had them here in So. CA

A fellow from Europe on the radio said bugs are the food of the future. He made 2 groups of meatballs. One of 100% beef and one was 35% cricket and the rest was beef. In a blind tasting, more than 75% of the testers prefered the cricket blend. He said it was a more economical use of grains to feed crickets than cows. Eating crickets to end world hunger I never would have thought of. Cicadas were on the list too. If they taste so good, why don't they all get eaten by predators so you wouldn't have to listen to them?

We have them here in Louisiana and they sing all day long in the summertime. They always remind me of the tremendous heat of the worst part of July/August/September. If you really sit there and concentrate on the sound, it almost sounds otherworldly--like an alien invasion. A lot of the time I almost tune them out since I've been hearing them my whole life.

Here in Florida, they are out and about all day in the summer, although more noticeable in the evening. I've learned to just tune them out. I sort of like them when I don't. We used to spend summers on the houseboat up on the river for weeks on end when I was a kid and there was just something relaxing about the buzzing. It made you feel apart of nature in a way.

But eat them? Um, no. I have enough land I'll just raise my own cows! But for those of you inclined to eat insects, come on down. We have a guaranteed smorgasbord here in the Sunshine State! I can promise all you can eat cockroaches, palmettos, and grasshoppers!!! Some even as big as your fist if you need to feed the whole family!

Here in Florida, they are out and about all day in the summer, although more noticeable in the evening. I've learned to just tune them out. I sort of like them when I don't. We used to spend summers on the houseboat up on the river for weeks on end when I was a kid and there was just something relaxing about the buzzing. It made you feel apart of nature in a way.

But eat them? Um, no. I have enough land I'll just raise my own cows! But for those of you inclined to eat insects, come on down. We have a guaranteed smorgasbord here in the Sunshine State! I can promise all you can eat cockroaches, palmetto bugs, and grasshoppers!!! Some even as big as your fist if you need to feed the whole family!

Believe you me, it won't be the weirdest thing this states ever seen LOL.

"why don't they all get eaten by predators so you wouldn't have to listen to them?"

The strategy of the periodical cicadas is to hatch in such numbers that predators can't make a dent in them. Their cycles are large prime numbers of years so that predator populations can't track them. There are roughly average numbers of predators every year that may feed on the average number of annual cicadas--then billions of periodical cicadas hatch every 13 years, and who is going to eat them? Many bamboo species follow a similar strategy about going to seed.

Chaoticdreams, those Florida grasshoppers are so big, you can just eat the hams and throw the rest away.

Ah, that makes sense now that our cicadas are a different variety than the true periodical ones that Mad Gallica was telling us about. I was wondering if we were going to have to batten down the hatches one of these years! I must admit that the folks that wax eloquent about cicadas are convincing me to have a better opinion, and as MirendaJean says you don't know what you're missing till those sounds are absent. Still, I can't think of them as songs in the sense crickets are songs. They're just too frantic sounding to me.

And eating them? BRRRR - even ground up they'd have a gross-out factor that crickets couldn't match. I'm trying to think of a predator that would eat them in average suburbia - they're as large as some kinds of birds or bats, and I can't see foxes or possums or raccoons enjoying cicada chow very much. Even if they did, those mammals and other predators obviously can't keep up with the periodic invasions.

Why do they only buzz (I refuse to call it sing) in late summer? I know the fireflies around the 4th of July are doing it to mate - is that the same for cicadas? Why do crickets and grasshoppers "sing" all year round in contrast?

All in all, I'm glad they stay out of sight in manageable numbers, and I appreciate the efforts to convince us to find some type of pleasant association for cicadas. Still not working for me, but it's a lovely attempt (smile)

Cynthia

I hate them, I hate them I hate them! They are big and loud! Bugs ought not be allowed to be that big in the first place! I had one land on my hand once, I thought I was gonna pass out. I shook my hand violently and it wasn't going anywhere, it was like it was stuck to me like velcro! I was doing everything (quickly) to get it off without having to touch it with my other hand. Eventually a friend came by after hearing me freak out and he got it off. But not without laughing. Did I mention I hate them!

Tammy O

Cynthia, yes, the buzz is the mating call of males, IIRC. And late summer is when the adult annual cicadas emerge from pupation underground. When they first come out, they are white with red eyes.

Occasionally, cicadas will lay eggs on rose canes. They make a jagged slit an inch or two long using a saw that protrudes from the abdomen.

It's the egg laying that damages the branches. It's very distinctive, and can happen on practically any woody plant that has the right diameter wood.

Ha! They are simply the sound of summer. Yeah, when I stop to actually consider the noise, it is extremely loud & obnoxious. But I've lived with them my whole life & so cicada song is just a normal background noise. In my mind, I associate them with the very hottest days of summer, when the heat waves are shimmering & the plants are wilting--the very dog days of deepest summer when even the animals are driven mad by the unrelenting heat.

As bugs, I always kind of liked them. They are the kind of sturdy unbreakable type that you can pick up & examine without damaging. They fascinated me as a kid. Big eyes, wonderful strong wings, they don't bite, incredible buzzing--what's not to like? (Okay, never had the horrid plague Mad gallica describes).

When I consider them from an outsider's view, yeah, the screeching & the sheer, incredible VOLUME, plus the never-ending ubiquitous sound might be pretty disturbing. Fortunately for me, they are as 'normal' as mockingbirds singing all night.
ETA: I think it's kind of cool how they sing in a chorus. You know: ZZZZBREEEEEEEEEEM zzzzbreebee zzzbrebee zzzbrebreeeeeBREEEBREEZZZZBREEEEEEEEEE

This post was edited by bluegirl on Thu, Aug 8, 13 at 21:55

Bluegirl, that's a good point about adjusting to whatever your experience says is normal - like traffic noises or train sounds if you live near their passages, or heat in a Nevada summer, or cold in a Minnesota winter. It's just what you expect and we build positive associations with it for the pleasant events that happen in that period. As a relative outsider to cicadas, the negative associations have gotten firmly established before any positive ones could set in. Tammy and MG have plenty of their own negative experiences too, and if they start laying eggs in my rose canes we'll definitely move them into my mental "bad bug" category.

Of course, I'm not big on loud repetitive uncontrollable sounds anyway - having lived in landlocked places all my life I find the sounds of ocean waves to be slightly disturbing and annoying, though not to the same extent. I'd way rather listen to crickets chirping than a tape of ocean sounds during "deep relaxation" parts of yoga class, but I realize I'm in the minority here.

So, Michael, if these chirping sounds are all mating behaviors, does that mean that crickets and grasshoppers are just more, um, horny than other bugs, or is it that they have quicker life cycles and we're hearing new generations of cricket males like perpetual teenagers desperate for a date on Saturday night? You'd think if the same old thing didn't get results last night, they'd give up or try something new, but I guess that doesn't apply to teenagers either...

Cynthia

I can easily sympathize with someone being driven CRAZY by cicada song. Fortunately, I tune it out.

Now, when toads start singing all night....BREEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Arg, I've been known to go out with a flashlight & catch them in a bucket to dump them in another part of the yard. Several times a night *sigh*. Hasn't been a problem in a long time--no water. Think it would now be a welcome sound to hear them celebrating a nice rain. Funny what sounds are annoying & what sounds you just tune out.

Last time they came out, the cicada wasps did as well. They are interesting-they go into a cicada nest, captures one and takes it to her 'burrow'. Then she lays an egg on it and it lives off the cicada. Last time they were here we observed this, it was cool!