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Is anyone ese OVER Brood X and their noisy nonsense?


KungFuPanda
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This is my life right now.  I need it to cool down or rain so that they will just shut up for 5 minutes.  I'm living in their epicenter and the novelty has worn off.  I swear they are worse this time than last time.  I don't think tonight will be cool enough for them to shut up, but we have a few 60 degree nights coming up, so I have hope.  My house is usually quiet, so this is a bit maddening.  If you're not experiencing the joy right now, CBS did a little piece today.  It was a little too Cicada Positive for my current mood, but whatever.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brood-x-cicadas-national-weather-service-radar/

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My aunt lives about 7 miles north of us.  We have none but we went to her house and could hear them through the closed windows if our old (squeaky and rattling) van on the highway!  She had thousands in a small tree outside her condo.  It's fascinating. 

She is in her eighties And wears  hearing aids.  I told her maybe turn them down a bit when she was complaining.   Anyway, it is 85 here so her air conditioning is running and with her windows closed you can't hear them inside anyway.  

We are just amazed that we have none and she has so many.  She wasn't amused when I told her the local news said they would be gone by July 4th.

 

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Not a cicada lover here.  They are So Loud.  It’s almost over, right?
 

We haven’t had too many this year, not hordes anyway, and I’m mostly thrilled.  Also, just very slightly disappointed that the kids don’t get to experience the coming of age in our area annoyance.  

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I'm still in love.

But also, I'm in the city. They're only occasionally in my neighborhood directly. I mean, they're here, but we're urban. Every single walk we take in every cemetery or park is inundated with them. Yesterday, I had about a million of them commit suicide against my windshield and accidentally fly into me and land in my hair. We had a morning walk on Roosevelt Island this morning and you couldn't not step on them. Maybe I'd feel differently if their dead bodies were literally covering my yard.

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I knew nothing of their existence until about 10-15 years ago when visiting a relative in IL and they had some in their backyard and I was horrified that a bug that large was hanging out in the yard with us.  We don't have them in my state and then last year, I found one in my raspberry patch that was just hatching out. Yuck Yuck Yuck.  We were suppose to be safe here.  Later we saw one hanging out on our tree in the back yard.  I don't know if it was the same one that was in the raspberry patch or if it was a second one but I was still not happy.  Thankfully, I haven't seen hide nor hair of any of them so far and I'm hoping it stays that way for the rest of my life.  I'm very sorry for those of you dealing with them.  Even if they are harmless, they are still big and ugly.

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1 hour ago, Farrar said:

I'm still in love.

But also, I'm in the city. They're only occasionally in my neighborhood directly. I mean, they're here, but we're urban. Every single walk we take in every cemetery or park is inundated with them. Yesterday, I had about a million of them commit suicide against my windshield and accidentally fly into me and land in my hair. We had a morning walk on Roosevelt Island this morning and you couldn't not step on them. Maybe I'd feel differently if their dead bodies were literally covering my yard.

Dd visited from D.C. over the weekend.  She says that they don't really have that many near her house.  You can't really SEE them too well on the grass, but you can on the paved surfaces and they are just COVERED with bodies.  There's a pervasive sour smell that comes with all that death.  I feel like my ears, nose, and eyes are full.  I didn't really start complaining until they started sounding loud when I went inside.  It's worse than when florescent lights make that buzzing noise.   I measured them at mid-40 decibels in the house and high 70s outside.  I think we have WEEKS to go.  I hope they at least taper off, or we get a few cool nights so they will quiet down in the evenings.

17 minutes ago, AmandaVT said:

You could embrace it with this shirt: https://www.snorgtees.com/t-shirts/brood-x-fest-2021 😁

 

1363265789_ScreenShot2021-06-09at4_56_42PM.thumb.png.cc2bef1317b3c6b5af3508daa1488237.png

Yeah, it'll be funnier later.  I would absolutely wear that shirt.  🤣

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1 hour ago, happi duck said:

The next big batch here will be in 2024.  Last time the town to our west had so many that we know someone who had to shovel their driveway!

HAD to shovel their driveway?  Like 2 feet deep, can't drive through them?   Or they chose to clean them off their driveway with a shovel to avoid stepping on them?

 

 

 

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Our neighborhood is one long street. Our end has flat, landscaped plots with wide open lawns. The other end is hilly and extremely wooded. We can barely hear the cicadas at our house, but when we walk down the street, it is a yammering chorus that actually hurts your ears.

So I like them, because I can choose whether to hear them or not. But I can totally understand that people who live right in the middle of it will find them super irritating. You have my empathy.

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Our yard isn't too bad but our neighbor's is. When we walk in our neighborhood there are a couple of spots where I have to cover my ears. It's painfully loud. I think they are cool, and I don't even mind them landing on me when I can spot them, but unexpected hitchhikers startle me. I felt one crawling on my neck under my hair and when I reached around to pick it off, it buzzed super loud right in my ear. Scared me and I'm glad I didn't squish it by accident trying to fling it off me as fast as possible. That just would have been too gross.

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28 minutes ago, Quill said:

I don’t know if this will work; the file may be too large. But I took some short video a few days ago, just so I could share it with my no-cicada friends. 
 

IMG_7709.MOV

Wow!  They are so loud!  I just played the clip for my oldest girls and they weren't overly impressed until they heard your voice and realized that the cicadas were drowning you out.  (They just thought I had the volume up really high.)  We are thankful that we don't have any.

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3 hours ago, jen3kids said:

HAD to shovel their driveway?  Like 2 feet deep, can't drive through them?   Or they chose to clean them off their driveway with a shovel to avoid stepping on them?

 

 

 

I guess they *chose* to shovel instead of driving over them or walking through them.  Not two feet deep, thank God!

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2 minutes ago, Junie said:

Wow!  They are so loud!  I just played the clip for my oldest girls and they weren't overly impressed until they heard your voice and realized that the cicadas were drowning you out.  (They just thought I had the volume up really high.)  We are thankful that we don't have any.

They are loudest when it’s bright, sunny midday. They chill out a little when it cools off or rains. 

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2 minutes ago, happi duck said:

I guess they *chose* to shovel instead of driving over them or walking through them.  Not two feet deep, thank God!

My boss’ garage flooded because his storm water driveway drain was so filled up with cicadas, the downpour we had had nowhere to go. So I can sort of imagine “shovel out the cicadas”, as he used his leaf blower to clean several hundred bugs out of his drain. 

The road I travel on my way home each day has cicadas all over the shoulders to where it almost looks like leaf litter does in the fall. 

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Just now, Quill said:

My boss’ garage flooded because his storm water driveway drain was so filled up with cicadas, the downpour we had had nowhere to go. So I can sort of imagine “shovel out the cicadas”, as he used his leaf blower to clean several hundred bugs out of his drain. 

The road I travel on my way home each day has cicadas all over the shoulders to where it almost looks like leaf litter does in the fall. 

 

8 minutes ago, happi duck said:

I guess they *chose* to shovel instead of driving over them or walking through them.  Not two feet deep, thank God!

That would be nasty!

 

7 minutes ago, Quill said:

They are loudest when it’s bright, sunny midday. They chill out a little when it cools off or rains. 

And I think when it's hotter as well.  They seem to thrive in the hot sun.  The cool weather we had at the end of May really put a 'damper' on their noise for a few days.

 

2 minutes ago, Quill said:

My boss’ garage flooded because his storm water driveway drain was so filled up with cicadas, the downpour we had had nowhere to go. So I can sort of imagine “shovel out the cicadas”, as he used his leaf blower to clean several hundred bugs out of his drain. 

The road I travel on my way home each day has cicadas all over the shoulders to where it almost looks like leaf litter does in the fall. 

I could definitely see that happening with the intense downpours we had yesterday and today.  

 

11 minutes ago, Junie said:

Wow!  They are so loud!  I just played the clip for my oldest girls and they weren't overly impressed until they heard your voice and realized that the cicadas were drowning you out.  (They just thought I had the volume up really high.)  We are thankful that we don't have any.

Today when I was talking to my mum on the phone, she asked if the cicadas were gone and I said no, not at all.  She couldn't hear them, so I opened the back door and she said, "WOW! They're that loud and you're standing at your back door!"  Last week I was outside in the yard talking on the phone so she could hear them for a few minutes, but they were even louder today.  I downloaded a sound meter app on my phone and it registered a high of 69dB from my deck.  I read they can get up to 100dB. 

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They’re not an issue at our house but half of the five mile drive to our grocery store is full of them. It’s so loud and they’re just everywhere. The store parking lot isn’t too bad but the sound makes you feel like you’ll be surrounded any second.

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2 hours ago, Katy said:

Can someone explain how they work?  Some emerge every year, but some broods are much larger than others?

There's one every 5 years and a big one every 17 years so while you hear about them you only REALLY hear about them rarely. The 17 year ones are in different locations and you can google something like "cicada brood by year" and see all the different places. They make a loud buzzing and get in everything from your drains to your engine to your mouth. If a pet eats too many they can die. They were sent by Satan.

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6 minutes ago, Slache said:

There's one every 5 years and a big one every 17 years so while you hear about them you only REALLY hear about them rarely. The 17 year ones are in different locations and you can google something like "cicada brood by year" and see all the different places. They make a loud buzzing and get in everything from your drains to your engine to your mouth. If a pet eats too many they can die. They were sent by Satan.

But I used to hear them in rural Florida every summer. So if they’re only every 5 years what was I hearing?  Some years were much louder than others, but it was the same sound as in Quill’s video. 

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12 minutes ago, Katy said:

But I used to hear them in rural Florida every summer. So if they’re only every 5 years what was I hearing?  Some years were much louder than others, but it was the same sound as in Quill’s video.

To my understanding, the ones in the South are every year while the ones in the midwest are on a schedule.

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14 hours ago, HeartString said:

I am so disappointed I’m not in an area that is having them. 

Want me to mail you a bucketful?

3 hours ago, Katy said:

Can someone explain how they work?  Some emerge every year, but some broods are much larger than others?

I'm in the mid-Atlantic and we are currently experiencing Brood X.  These are the 17 year ones. If you haven't watched the video in the original post, it's pretty entertaining and Dr. Bug puts a much more positive spin on it than I do. They can only be described as a Biblical Plague.  They remind me of old WWII footage of those clumsy bombers flying everywhere. In addition to walking through constant cicada flight paths, the birds are absolutely gorging themselves, so they are constantly swooping down to grab them.  A lot of people report that they are ignoring birdfeeders altogether.  It's been an experience.  It was fun for a minute, but I won't miss them when they're gone.  I need to get my leaf vacuum out and clean up my patio and walkways.  I keep forgetting myself, running outside barefoot, and deeply regretting my choices.  

2A676AB1-4278-4489-8386-4F5163649986.jpeg

Edited by KungFuPanda
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I'm in the Midwest and we have some every year in between the invasions.  I've assumed they are all on the same schedule it's just some years are more bountiful.

Eta: I just looked it up...seems to be two types of cicadas around here: an annual type and the 17 year type

Edited by happi duck
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3 hours ago, Slache said:

To my understanding, the ones in the South are every year while the ones in the midwest are on a schedule.

I was just about to ask about this.  I hear them very year (I think anyway), but they’re not quite as loud I guess as the broods in other regions.   I’m in the deep south. 

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Here's a helpful map about the different broods. https://www.fs.fed.us/foresthealth/docs/CicadaBroodStaticMap.pdf

We get both periodic cicadas which tend to come out earlier and are clumsy and slow, and the annual ones which you hear more in late July and August and almost never see because they are agile and not as numerous.

Editing to add that we actually live in a hatched area on the map and get more than one 17 year brood over 17 years. I figured a lot of people did, but looking at that map, we are actually pretty special, lol!

Edited by livetoread
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In Georgia, except for tiny areas in the north, we don't have the "brood" cicadas. Instead we have annual ones that are my traditional "now it's really hot" marker for summer. I think they come out from July to August, but they mostly hide up on the trees and aren't nearly so loud.

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