BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 31 May 16 - 10:14 AM

I wonder if wysiwyg is hearing/seeing them in Xenia.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 30 May 16 - 04:50 PM

You need an umbrella when you walk under cicadas??

http://www.observer-reporter.com/20160527/cicada-researcher-bring-an-umbrella-under-trees

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 May 16 - 03:14 PM

"Horny Cicadas Swarm Concrete Saw"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBgcWIqtBTk

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 24 May 16 - 04:11 PM

This from the AthensNews website in Athens, Ohio, which is at Brood V's Ground Zero so to speak. Dated April 27, 2016. Author, Dennis E. Powell.

Quoting Dr. Gene Kritsky:
"...not uncommon to find up to 200 per square yard."
"People will begin to notice the 'chimneys' that occur [at the ground surface]. Under their decks or in covered areas, [people] will notice what look like little crayfish chimneys. But that's the cicada nymphs building these extensions to their [underground] tunnels."

"The females do flick their wings [see previous post on the noise mimicry of snapping one's fingers] in response to a male, so the males [the noisy critters] will start walking towards her."

"When they emerge, they're food for all sorts of animals -- in 1999, the [Ohio] Division of Wildlife reported that the average weight of male turkeys from eastern Ohio was higher than it was the previous year."

[Why did the turkey cross the road? To gorge on cicadas?]

Dr. Kritsky described, on the other hand, an over-enthusiastic Labrador Retriever dog. [Reporter] At first, the dog was playfully snatching the cicadas out of the air as they flew by. Dr. Kritsky: "When I saw the dog again 48 hours later, it was on the porch, its head down, and cicadas were actually landing on it." 'But no permanent harm was done.'

And you know what else can happen?

"That certainly does happen," says Dr. Gene Kritsky. "Briggs & Stratton weed whackers and certain kinds of lawn mowers vibrate at the same sound as a cicada chorusing sound. And that causes other cicadas, males and females, to fly towards that sound, because they think that it's a congregation of other cicadas for possible mating."
[Reporter] As a number of YouTube videos demonstrate, the phenomenon is not limited to weed whackers and lawn mowers, either. It's been shown to happen with electric saws, drills, and angle grinders. This year we'll find out if cicadas are drawn to hobby drone aircraft. Those didn't exist, in 1999, when the Brood V periodic cicadas last emerged. [Endquote]

Last but not least:
If the soil where these periodic cicadas have spent the last seventeen years has high levels of mercury -- any levels of mercury actually -- so have the cicadas, according to Dr. Kritsky and other cicada entomology specialists. Do you cicada-cookers want to eat mercury this summer??

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: vectis
Date: 23 May 16 - 10:06 PM

Aren't we lucky? We get cicadas every year. In some areas of forest they are deafening.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 23 May 16 - 03:15 PM

From WKYC in the greater Cleveland area:

"The Cleveland Museum of Natural History entomologist Gavin Svenson says we could see these periodical cicadas above ground for three to six weeks before they die.

"....He warns that we could see more than a million of cicadas per acre, which is expected to emit a lot of buzz....

"But don't worry, the annoying critters should be gone before the Republican National Convention come July."

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Stewie
Date: 20 May 16 - 09:24 AM

Very soon they die
But of that there is no sign
In cicadas' cry

Translation of traditional haiku.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 May 16 - 03:19 PM

From Martins Ferry, Ohio:

"You can teach kids about cicada behavior by simply snapping your fingers. Snapping [your fingers] will prompt the male insects to walk toward you, because the noise mimics the sound of the female."

from No Need To Fear, editorial in The Times-Leader



p.s. Is it true that they go silent after dark/ at night?

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 May 16 - 07:34 PM

There are photos of the red-eyed beasties creeping up trees in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 May 16 - 02:48 PM

News reports online are coming in from West Virginia and eastern Ohio. The entomologists are having a field day: "like an old friend coming to visit..."

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 28 Apr 16 - 05:35 PM

Donuel, are those the burrowing critters that eat emerald borer beetles, I think the pests are called, which decimate trees as well?

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Apr 16 - 11:15 AM

For those who'd like to read the omelet thread:

(with words to the cicada serenade)

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Apr 16 - 01:38 AM

Actually the wings are not protein but are like our fingernails.

I have a huge colony of cicada killers out front. They are harmless bee creatures that burrow in the ground leaving a miniature volcano of dirt where the bees drag a cicada into the hole to feed them to tier young.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Apr 16 - 09:25 PM

If you can't beat 'em, eat 'em:

1/2 cup Old Bay® Seasoning

2 tablespoons salt

4 quarts water

1 (12 fluid ounce) can beer (optional)

8 red potatoes, quartered

2 large sweet onions, cut in wedges

2 pounds lean smoked sausage, cut in 2-inch lengths

8 ears fresh corn, broken in half

4 pounds large cicadas

Directions:

1. In an 8-quart pot, bring Old Bay, salt, water and beer to a boil. Add potatoes and onions; cook over high heat for 8 minutes.

2. Add smoked sausage to potatoes and onions; continue to cook on high for 5 minutes. Add corn to pot; continue to boil for 7 minutes. Add cicadas, cook for 5 minutes.

3. Drain cooking liquid. Pour contents of pot into several large bowls, shallow pails or mound on a paper-covered picnic table. Sprinkle with additional Old Bay if desired.


Read More: Cicada Bug Recipes | http://nj1015.com/top-cicada-bug-recipes/?trackback=tsmclip

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 27 Apr 16 - 07:04 PM

Let's try this with an omelette-free thread.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/science/new-brood-of-cicadas-to-sound-siren-song-in-5-states.html?_r=0

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 May 04 - 11:47 PM

Bobert...all God's creatures got a place in the choir, remember?!**bg**

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 May 04 - 11:42 PM

I think even the District of Columbia may be hard pressed to match the summertime din found in Arkansas in the summer. You literally can't hear a conversation if you're outside in a campground around July and August. This is what my kids and I found in mid-Arkansas, around Lake Ouachita and the Hot Springs area. Everything is making a racket.

Here is the Washington Post cicada cam. It's dark right now, but today it was set by a tree and you could see a fence and the tree covered with the things.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Bobert
Date: 21 May 04 - 11:24 PM

Well, gol danged, LH... You done opened up my eyes on this one... 'cept when I die I don't plan on litterin' up no ones driveway 'er back porch and, shoot, I ain't into all that noise stuff... Okay, I play a little blues now and then but ain't like the 24/7 drone of them locusts...

And, yeah, that's my final answer!!!

...i think...

BObert

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 May 04 - 11:12 PM

I used to be fascinated by the discarded husks of the cicadas when I was a kid, and would collect them. They look very neat, like little alien monsters of some kind.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 May 04 - 11:03 PM

Thousand year old trees may look at people that way too, Bobert...

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Bobert
Date: 21 May 04 - 10:25 PM

Shoot, Iz been eatin'dem critters fir the las week... Tastes like chicken! Not... They is everywhere here in the Wes Ginny panhandle. I started a "cicada omlette" thread but I reckon it done fell off, jus' like their little carcuses are gonna do in about 3 weeks and they'll be thousands of 'em evrywhere you walk... Crunch, crunch...

Hey, what I don't unnerstand is this. Why? I mean I gotta a lottta respect for the Big Guy but cicadas? Come on, Godster... Let me see if I got this one right there, Big Feller. You go and create these critters who only have a three week shelf life every 17 years? I mean, all they do is come out of the ground every 17 years, climb to the tops of trees, lay eggs, make a bunch of noise, and in less than a month they're all dead and littering the roads like confetti? Hmmmm? Now, I gotta a lot of respect fir most of yer danged creations there, God, but this one has me shakin' my head... Well, don't feel bad. We all have those kinda days...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Donuel
Date: 21 May 04 - 09:57 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/mmedia/metro/051804-22v.htm


One landed on my hand today looked at me and growled 3 times and flew away. Some sound like a woman screaming but when a a million or two get together its sounds like a 1950 flying saucer sound coming straight down from the sky in a whirling twirling pulse of constant wavering.

They taste a bit like asparagus. All protein and no fat or carbs.
The protein of the wings has welded onto my car where they have layed dead too long. Perhaps Nasa can look into a new tile glue formula from cicada wings.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 21 May 04 - 02:12 AM

This thread ought to be joined with the "Magic Moments" thread.

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 May 04 - 01:10 AM

I remember when they showed up in CT, in 1997, if I remember correctly. I'd never seen anything like it. As they stayed outside, I found them fascinating.(It would've been different if they'd gotten into the house!:-) Your description and thoughts are well put. Thanks!

kat

Subject: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: BO in KY
Date: 21 May 04 - 12:53 AM

OK so I'm out by the maple tree in the back yard, flashlight in hand, showing my 8-year-old son the larvae swarming up the tree. He is less than impressed, but I am mesmerized by these creatures, in various stages of metamorphosis, slowly turning from a subterranean grub to a bizzare winged thing. In my revelry I hadn't noticed that some of the grubs mistook me for a tree, and were making their way up my pants legs. My son didn't even stay for the dance, but ran screaming into the house - he was more impressed at that point, I suppose. I only hope I can get him to come outside again sometime .....

Seriously, there is something primordial, macabre, profound and moving about the whole thing. Imagine emerging on a humid May night after tunneling through the ground for 17 years, climbing a tree, splitting open and turning into a completely different creature. Who says there are no miracles in the world?? They are also like little time machines, coming up where a tree was 17 years ago - it's uncanny. And it gives one pause.

Bo