Friday, May 30, 2008

Cicada City!

Apparently it is the time of year for cicadas to hatch, or whatever it is they do.  We have 3 trees in the back yard filled with moulted cicada shells.   It really is quite an eerie site when standing under the trees and looking up (see photo below).  All of the lower branches look like this from the underside of the leaves.  And the ground around the trees is littered with shells as well.  We are now starting to hear them sing when sitting outside...summer is here!

Though not all of the cicadas are singing their song.  It turns out that dogs seem to have a craving for cicadas...and what we have is a free-for-all cicada buffet.  Blue doesn't care for them too much, but I'd be willing to bet that Lois Lane and Hardy have eaten three days worth of meals in cicadas alone.  It's a miracle there are any left to sing between them and the squirrels munching away.  *gag*    So if the cicadas go extinct this year, I'm pretty sure I know why.  


One of the survivors:



View from under the tree:


The ground around the trees:

2 comments:

  1. Ew! Ew! I'm going to have bug dreams. We had cicadas here only one summer that I've lived here - is that normal? They were here but just that one year. It was kind of gross, but Gus ate a lot.

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  2. We usually don't get this many. I know they have a certain species that come in huge droves like this every 17 years and another that does an every 13 year stint. It's crazy!

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