Last week I wrote with nonchalance regarding our seventeen year cicada event. This week, while I am still far from being annoyed by these bugs, I am impressed by them. They are everywhere, in every stage of their life cycle; from the pencil sized holes they leave as the nymphs dig their way up from their subterranean nurseries. Empty exoskeletons still cling to the undersides of leaves. Finally, the adult cicadas buzz and zip around the garden, providing extra nutrition to the bird population and fun and games for Izzie, our calico.
In the past few days the with daily high temperatures nearing 90 degrees, the background noise has intensified as millions of the buggers beat their wings in a deafening chorus. If you’ve ever seen the movie, “The Good Earth”, it is the same sound the Chinese peasants heard just before the swarm of grasshoppers descended upon their fields consuming everything. It is almost a metallic sound, like a gigantic machine. The “singing” begins with the sunrise and softens as the sun goes down in the evening.
I suppose if you let it bother you, the constant sound could be distracting, like a neighbor’s barking dog when you’re trying to fall asleep. I sometimes imagine we’re in a fifties’ horror film about giant insects attacking from outer space. If that were the case, my world would be in black and white and I’d feel like clamping my hands to the sides of my face and screaming at the top of my lungs as my neighbors ran down the street in terror in a vain attempt to escape the invaders. If the sound indicated the size of the creature, it would indeed be big and scary.
But life is far from frightening this morning as I sit on my front porch. The sun is warm but there is cool breeze. The air is sweet from the honeysuckle blossoming down the street. Above the cicada chorus, I can hear a mother robin talking to her chicks in my holly bush. They’re about a week old now and appear to be puffs of down with yellow mouths that open when they hear sound near them.
Yes, the cicadas are still here, and as it warms up, they are getting louder. ‘The guy at the garden center said that we only have a few more weeks to bear them.
I also have only a few weeks to enjoy my robins before they fledge. Maybe the next clutch will nest in the quiet of the early summer.
We’ll just have to see.