Cicada invasion!

[Captainkirk]

Here in the midwest we are seeing the largest cicada "crop" in over 200 years! One of our planes was in Nashville last week and the pilots reported aircraft on the ramps being completely covered in cicadas. How about you guys?

[AntiqueSledMan]

Hello Captain,

So far we haven't noticed much, but usually we don't hear them until later in the season.
It's been very wet in Minnesota, hopefully the rains will calm down.
Rivers are high and uneducated people are discovering that they shouldn't
be out with their canoes and kayaks, experience is the best teacher but some don't survive.

AntiqueSledMan.

[mike116]

What is a cicada?    Here we have a yearly Miler moth Invasion.   They migrate from the plains to the mountains every spring.   Not too bad this year but some years everything is covered with moths.

[Zulch]

They have been mistakenly called locusts. They are similar in size to a grub worm that burrows from under ground to the surface then crawls to a tree, bush or the side of your house. They then shed their skin and sprout wings and clumsily fly around. There are so many that when they start making their unique voice in unison it becomes like a very loud drone sound. Some folks have been known to contact the authorities thinking they are about to be under some kind of extra terrestrial invasion. That's my take on a cicada.

[Dave Shooter]

Handsome?

[Captainkirk]

Hello Captain,

So far we haven't noticed much, but usually we don't hear them until later in the season.
It's been very wet in Minnesota, hopefully the rains will calm down.
Rivers are high and uneducated people are discovering that they shouldn't
be out with their canoes and kayaks, experience is the best teacher but some don't survive.

AntiqueSledMan.

Yep. Amateur hour. Happens every year about this time on the white water rivers in WI. At least one drowning and multiple canoe/raft tips.

[Captainkirk]

Incidentally...the sidewalk outside out hangar offices door was littered with cicadas today (dead ones). Driving home I went past a forest preserve. While at the stop lights, I turned off my radio because I heard a hissing noise. Yep, cicadas again. Noisy buggers!

[Captainkirk]

Seems like the first wave of cicadas is waning some. It's still pretty noisy out there at times.

[Captainkirk]

There are more cicadas littered around the tarmac and concrete than I've ever seen before. It looks like the parking lot outside a Stop Smoking clinic littered with cigarette butts! Most of them are dead, but not all of them. Anyone else fighting with these critters?

[AntiqueSledMan]

Hello Captain,

We will be having the Antique Snowmobile Club of America's Summer Meet in Hopedale, Illinois
on July 12th and 13th. We will be displaying outside the Willis Snowmobile Museum.
The last time we were there, the city blocked a street off for us to display our sleds.
I sure hope I don't end up with a bunch of hitch-hikers riding back home on my sleds.

AntiqueSledMan.

[Captainkirk]

Hoping most will be dead by then. They don't appear to have a long life span, judging by all the corpses littered about

[Zulch]

I keep my mouth closed when I mow the lawn.

[Captainkirk]

 

[Marshal Will]

LOL, Z.

[Clydesdale4x4]

What is a cicada?    Here we have a yearly Miler moth Invasion.   They migrate from the plains to the mountains every spring.   Not too bad this year but some years everything is covered with moths.

Mike, picture walking out to your yard, in say, Oh I Don't know anywhere in that humid hell known as the MidWest, Columbia MO was my first introduction.

Evening libation in one hand, smoking device in the other.

Sitting down in your chair, enjoying (muggy AF, enjoy is maybe not as accurate a word track, as I could use on a family-friendly forum), your first evening in Middle America, being a Pacific Northwest Boy your whole life.

Bemused by the fireflies, a novelty not seen here, when all of a sudden the yard erupts with this freaky air raid siren noise.... and you've no clue where it is coming from...

Welcome to Cicada 101