No Cicadas

[fairfarmhand]

I have yet to see or hear a single cicada at or near my home. I wonder why? Anyone else?

[mommyoffive]

Nothing yet.

[Kassia]

My friend in Illinois has seen hundreds of shells and one living one so far.

 

[lauraw4321]

We're in the peak of it in North Alabama. Ear-splitting and kinda gross. But I think we have different broods in different parts of the country. 

[Melissa in Australia]

Cicadas live between 7 to 14 years, depending on the species, underground before emerging to mate. If above ground has changed,( like the tree they were laid on and were living under has been cut down so there is nothing to climb ) during that time then they are in trouble. 

Edited May 15 by Melissa in Australia

[fairfarmhand]

Yeah it's weird. I see Insta posts in Nashville where there's hundreds and here, 30 minutes away there's nothing.

[alisoncooks]

I’m pretty sure there are about a billion in the trees in my front yard (central NC). They’ve been crazy loud these last two weeks, partying like it’s 1999. The week before that, they were crawling out of the ground, new hoards every morning.  This pic is a week or two ago — the ground around this tree was completely covered in piles of live cicadas and their discarded skins. They are getting slower now — I think they’ve peaked and are dying off.

[alisoncooks]

Another: 

[Jann in TX]

Ewwww

[ScoutTN]

22 minutes ago, fairfarmhand said:

I have yet to see or hear a single cicada at or near my home. I wonder why? Anyone else?

We can hear them, loudly, but do not have zillions in our actual trees. 
 

My MIL, in Franklin, has SO many!!

[ScoutTN]

21 minutes ago, alisoncooks said:

I’m pretty sure there are about a billion in the trees in my front yard (central NC). They’ve been crazy loud these last two weeks, partying like it’s 1999. The week before that, they were crawling out of the ground, new hoards every morning.  This pic is a week or two ago — the ground around this tree was completely covered in piles of live cicadas and their discarded skins. They are getting slower now — I think they’ve peaked and are dying off.

😳😱😱

[ScoutTN]

10 minutes ago, Jann in TX said:

Ewwww

Understatement! 

[ScoutTN]

56 minutes ago, Melissa in Australia said:

Cicadas live between 7 to 14 years, depending on the species, underground before emerging to mate. If above ground has changed,( like the tree they were laid on and were living under has been cut down so there is nothing to climb ) during that time then they are in trouble. 

There are 13 and 17 yr broods overlapping here this year.

[Pawz4me]

1 hour ago, fairfarmhand said:

Yeah it's weird. I see Insta posts in Nashville where there's hundreds and here, 30 minutes away there's nothing.

 

1 hour ago, alisoncooks said:

I’m pretty sure there are about a billion in the trees in my front yard (central NC).

I think they must be really localized. I'm pretty sure I'm an hour or two west of @alisoncooks and we haven't seen or heard any in our yard or on our neighborhood walks (thank goodness). But people who are ten minutes away from us have posted on FB that the cicada noise is about to drive them batty. And it's not because things have changed in or around our neighborhood.

[kbutton]

1 hour ago, fairfarmhand said:

Yeah it's weird. I see Insta posts in Nashville where there's hundreds and here, 30 minutes away there's nothing.

We live in a pocket where we get yearly cicadas (later in the summer), but everywhere around us within a 15 minute drive gets the intermittent kind in spades. It’s kind of surreal. We miss them entirely while hearing everyone’s horror stories.

They are noisy! I think I would still prefer them to massive Gypsy moth invasions though—so many crawling all over, and the poop is insane. Walking under trees you can expect the poop to be like rain, and caterpillars to be dropping all over too.

[Annie G]

Where I am in Georgia they are very loud.  Constant droning. It’s super annoying. I can hear them when I’m inside my house, windows closed. 

[athena1277]

I can only hear them a little outside my house, but if I walk to the far end of the street, they get louder.  There’s so much farm land and new construction of neighborhoods around us that have kept them down in the immediate vicinity.

The funny thing is that there are so many people from other parts of the country that have moved here in the last few years, that social media has exploded with people asking what the noise is.  And the locals going crazy that everyone keeps asking.  I just read the posts for laughs because they really aren’t such a big deal here where cicadas are a common occurrence.

[Arcadia]

@fairfarmhand when I saw the thread title, I thought pet shops run out of cicadas for the bearded dragons. @alisoncooks That is a lot of cicadas. At least they are a lot less harmful than locusts.

[Rosie_0801]

I like cicadas!

There's a crazy one in the ditch next to my driveway. Buddy, it's mid-May, it's been below 5C overnight on and off. No one's gonna fault you for going on winter break.

[bookbard]

We have the years where cicadas are bad and the years you barely notice them. One year I needed ear muffs to just go out in my yard to hang out the washing. I found it interesting that you'd travel not too far, maybe an hour, and the cicadas in that place would have a different sound, a slightly different note. 

[dirty ethel rackham]

We are in the range for Brood XIII, but we haven't seen them yet.  My son is a biologist studying cicadas.  He will be taking a break from writing his dissertation to come back home for the emergence later this month.  I think it is exciting in spite of the noise and mess.  But I also like the "dog days" annual cicadas we hear every August.  

We live in a 60 year old subdivision, but I don't remember the last emergence being all that big around here.  

[KungFuPanda]

Luckily we’re left out of this particular party. When we had them a few years ago, it was interesting for about a week but then the incessant noise was maddening. They were so so loud. 

[KidsHappen]

4 hours ago, fairfarmhand said:

Yeah it's weird. I see Insta posts in Nashville where there's hundreds and here, 30 minutes away there's nothing.

That's weird. I am about 45 minutes south and one of my dd another 15 minutes south of us and we are both hearing them very loudly at night. I have another dd who lives about 2 hours southwest of us, out in the country. I will have to ask her if they are hearing them. 

[scbusf]

Nothing yet in SE Virginia.

[Katy]

Haven't heard a single one. But saw a few empty shells both in my backyard and hiking while chaperoning a field trip to a local nature center. I thought it was very strange.

[JennyD]

5 hours ago, ScoutTN said:

We can hear them, loudly, but do not have zillions in our actual trees. 
 

My MIL, in Franklin, has SO many!!

And we're just a few miles from you, but we have loads.  Super loud and the dingbat dog is eating them like potato chips.

 

Edited May 16 by JennyD

[YaelAldrich]

5 hours ago, Pawz4me said:

 

I think they must be really localized. I'm pretty sure I'm an hour or two west of @alisoncooks and we haven't seen or heard any in our yard or on our neighborhood walks (thank goodness). But people who are ten minutes away from us have posted on FB that the cicada noise is about to drive them batty. And it's not because things have changed in or around our neighborhood.

I'm currently about an hour north of @Pawz4meand nothing although it's been raining  since I got here on Tuesday afternoon. 

[KungFuPanda]

When we had them last we were in the thick of it but nearby neighborhoods had none. When they built my neighborhood the didn’t clear cut the trees. They just prepped what land they needed for the individual houses. In neighborhoods with more drastic ground disturbance, they didn’t get nearly the volume we did. 

[BusyMom5]

We live in the woods and the noise is never-ending!  

[Pawz4me]

But I have acres and acres (and acres) of woods right across from me. Huge old growth deciduous trees. And no cicadas.

[Innisfree]

1 hour ago, KungFuPanda said:

When we had them last we were in the thick of it but nearby neighborhoods had none. When they built my neighborhood the didn’t clear cut the trees. They just prepped what land they needed for the individual houses. In neighborhoods with more drastic ground disturbance, they didn’t get nearly the volume we did. 

Same here, but posts from others in nearby regions emphasize that the cicadas really are highly localized. We don’t have them clustering at the base of trees like in pictures above, at least not that I’ve seen. The noise is steady and remarkable, though, and I can often see one or two on our porch screens or nearby trees. The cat has taken to snacking on them, dd tells me.

Right now I’m a couple of hours west, and not a sign of them. Saturday morning a couple of hours north, and not a sign.

[Elizabeth86]

Not at my home, but we traveled through GA recently and they were flying in the car windows and grabbing onto us going into restaurants. 

[DawnM]

Come to my yard!   They are SO LOUD!

[WendyLady]

We are in Northern Louisiana and have not seen (or heard) any cicadas yet. I have been wondering if this is normal. We moved here two years ago right at memorial day and the cicadas were going strong. I can't remember when they arrived (emerged?)  last summer. I just have noticed that there is no humming yet this summer, and no skin-sheds on my porch rails.

I was in St. Louis visiting my sister two weeks ago and I saw a cicada and some shedded skins, but they look like much smaller cicadas than I have seen here. 

Edited May 17 by WendyLady

[GailV]

I'm in St Louis county, and we have a pretty good crop at our house. In addition to the trees, they're on the streetlamp post, covering one of the car tires (car is parked in the driveway), on the chives ... I wonder if these are all the cicadas that are sitting at the "unpopular" lunch table, while the "cool kid" cicadas are on the trees. I mean, really, a car tire? When there are several trees and shrubs close by?

OTOH, I talked to someone today who lives bordering woods and former-farmland/now-subdivision, and he has none.

Shout out to Skye Jethani for telling us all about "cicada rain" during the Holy Post podcast this week. 

[fairfarmhand]

Just now, GailV said:

 

 

Shout out to Skye Jethani for telling us all about "cicada rain" during the Holy Post podcast this week. 

I heard that! So nasty!

[ScoutTN]

Ds, a ps 10th grader, said some kid captured a bunch and turned them loose in the lunch room at school yesterday. 🙄

[dirty ethel rackham]

Any cicada updates?  They started emerging here in the Chicago burbs last weekend.  We have a good amount of them, but certainly not the shovels full I remember from childhood.  Ds had to change his plans to come a week early.  2 more sleeps until he arrives.  They are singing their "songs of love" and it is getting pretty noisy in the late afternoon.  

[fairfarmhand]

Still nothin’ in my neighborhood. Went to a nearby town (12 miles away) for a dr appointment this week and heard a few.

[regentrude]

Lots of cicadas here in mid-Missouri. Bushes on my friend's farm are covered. And they're loud!

[ScoutTN]

Lots here. Getting louder. 

But not tons on our particular trees. I think our trees must have more from a different brood. 

[Dmmetler]

The brood emergences seem to be spotty. My friends on the other side of the river in AK have tons, but we don't seem to have any more than normal on this side. OTOH, I have had more "uh, what is this snake" that turned out to be copperheads than usual this year (usually it's NEVER a copperhead-this year, it's running about 50%), and copperheads LOVE eating freshly molted cicadas. So maybe?? 

[Pawz4me]

Still none in my neighborhood.

[Indigo Blue]

2 hours ago, Pawz4me said:

Still none in my neighborhood.

I can’t believe it! They are everywhere I go in our area. That’s amazing you have none. 

[ScoutTN]

4 hours ago, Dmmetler said:

The brood emergences seem to be spotty. My friends on the other side of the river in AK have tons, but we don't seem to have any more than normal on this side. OTOH, I have had more "uh, what is this snake" that turned out to be copperheads than usual this year (usually it's NEVER a copperhead-this year, it's running about 50%), and copperheads LOVE eating freshly molted cicadas. So maybe?? 

Yikes! Be careful! 
We have seen several snakes, but definitely not copperheads.

Edited May 24 by ScoutTN

[ScoutTN]

The rain definitely stills them. Drizzly day here and the absence of the whirring is very noticeable.

[mommyoffive]

4 hours ago, Pawz4me said:

Still none in my neighborhood.

Same

[Innisfree]

I can sit at a window, or out on the screened porch, and watch them fly from tree to tree. Not swarms of them, but one here… and then one there… and then another. And it just.keeps.on. The noise can be amazing. 
 

6 hours ago, Dmmetler said:

copperheads LOVE eating freshly molted cicadas.

I’ve been wondering what would be enjoying the feast, other than apparently our cat. Probably all kinds of carnivorous or omnivorous creatures.

[fairfarmhand]

On 5/15/2024 at 6:12 PM, Arcadia said:

@fairfarmhand when I saw the thread title, I thought pet shops run out of cicadas for the bearded dragons. @alisoncooks That is a lot of cicadas. At least they are a lot less harmful than locusts.

My grandparents called them locusts. They were from Georgia.

[J-rap]

We get lots of cicadas here, but not until August.  We also get lots of June bugs...  They hatch near the river river and coat the street lights and sidewalks over night.