This was the year of all years for these creatures that are born in the trees, crawl their little larvae selves into the earth, suck on tree roots and mature several feet underground for 13 or 17 years. But this year happened to be the big-mama of all cicada hatchings for a group waiting for a long 17 years underground for their pathetically short welcome to the day-light, sing, mate and die festival. This particular group is one of only 15 surviving regional broods, a fact I was unaware of until reading up on the creatures littering my driveway and leaving their body prints on my windshield. We hear the cicadas every year in late Spring...these are the relatively few errant ones who missed their cue and sprang to the stage early. So this year was unlike any other since we moved to the East Coast for the first time 12 years ago. Billions of them! Billions! One morning Jared measured the decibels from our front porch and found that it reached 65......which I learned compares to normal conversation at 3" apart. Now, that might not seem all that loud, but imagine hearing a normal conversation going on all around you in every direction all the time, and we had it moderately quiet here compared with some of our neighbors who couldn't have a phone conversation without the person commenting on what they were hearing in the background. For me I never wanted to tell them to keep it down as I enjoyed their noise and learning about what the different sounds were (males versus females for example), but I know that for some it was a little maddening. There were also daily comments from the boys wondering if I knew that people in our area were eating them.....fried, dipped in chocolate, scrambled, or raw. I imagine that these play-ground rumors likely started as some sort of truth, somewhere here in Virginia. I'd give it a 100% probability that someone has successfully dared someone else to eat one in our county. In a NYT's article, the author described them as flying vitamin capsules and to boot they are high in protein and have saved near starving groups of people, so eating them might be worth trying just in case they become a food source at some future point.
The majority of them came and went in about two weeks and I will admit that I didn't really notice their mass death. They had become by rhythmic background noise and I found a sense of comfort with them as I do every summer. I will be 58 years old when they emerge again....no telling what life will look like then, but I'll happily welcome the Cicada Brood II back with open ears.
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