cicada update: anniversary report
I saw a few this weekend. Some good displays of shells on the undersides of our great linden leaves and one fellow on a Rudbeckia bush. Most of the adults I saw were dead, though. I don't think they live very long at all. They're huge and ugly, but they don't trigger my general aversion to small mechanistic creatures that most bugs do.
I have not yet been hit in the head by a cicada. The buzz has started, it's a low roar during the day. It's got a pitch to it, a dominant frequency. I wonder if a distant SETI program is busy interpreting the 17-year cycle of Magicicada for signs of intelligent life.
Feast of sauteed cicadas makes man ill
The man showed up at a Bloomington clinic Thursday, covered from head-to-toe in hives, and sheepishly told a doctor he'd caught and ate the cicadas after sauteing them in butter with crushed garlic and basil.
Finally I offer this gorgeous gallery of Magicicada photographs on mac.com.
Comments
Note that some cicadas that appear dead might just be unable to fly and have somehow landed on their backs. Yesterday I moved one out of my daughter's sight--she likes holding live ones, but fears dead ones and especially hates their "exoskeletons," a word that I enjoy hearing her say. We thought this particular cicada had died--it laid unmoving on its back on the porch. With a dry magnolia leaf I scooped it up and deposited it in the grass. But I noticed its legs were wiggling, and within minutes it flew up over the roof.
A neighborhood child had posted signs along the streets inviting people to stop by their informational display about cicadas. Kool-Aid was part of the bargain. One sign said, "Come see cicadas mate or just be themselves."
Posted by: nedlog | May 17, 2004 10:44 AM
When aliens come, will be behave this way? they are coming, you know.
cicadas look like micro sopwith camels. or old men with wings.
Posted by: hk | May 17, 2004 8:45 PM
Posted by: nedlog | May 18, 2004 3:17 PM
That's rich.
Guess what?
Are there really so many cicadas hanging around? Were those cicadas stuck on the sign on purpose, or did they really land there?
When aliens come to America, I wonder what they will think of the cicadas? Are the cicadas a pre-landing surveillance team, I wonder?
Do you?
Posted by: hk | May 22, 2004 3:53 AM
There was an emergence of cicadas in Rochester, New York in the 1950s, when I was a kid. They fascinated me then but the only memory of them that has survived the passage of years is the image of light brown skins clinging to trees. In June, 2002 I encountered the ugly critters while driving through western Pennsylvania. In Rochester PA (NW of Pittsburgh; where the Beaver River joins the Ohio), I saw them flying about at Hank’s ice cream stand. They darted through the air in a lazy, aimless fashion, crashing into lamp poles, cars, people, and the walls of the building. It was as if they were intoxicated. Little kids stomped the ugly things where they had landed on the concrete. Those orange beady cicada eyes were a sight! Farther west, in Midland PA, I didn’t see any, but on one residential street I heard a bunch of trees buzzing as if to announce that the neighborhood would explode at any time. It was eerie. As I drove north toward Buffalo I quickly left the bugs behind.
Posted by: Dave Beedon | May 26, 2004 11:50 PM