They’re Back! Swarmageddon at Our House

I’m really trying to learn to like cicadas. They have been underground for 17 years and are finally emerging to experience all the fullness of life for about one month before they die and the entire cycle repeats itself. It’s a tragic yet beautiful story.

But I have to say, these bugs still creep me out! Those red eyes! The sheer numbers of them!

I grew up in the western United States where there are no cicadas. While there are year-round cicadas in many places, only on the east coast do you really see the periodical cicadas where they come out of the ground in large numbers every 10 or 17 years or so. During the last brood emergence (my first exposure to this), I was panicked. The cicadas are supposed to love forested areas with lots of trees and that is exactly where we live. I pictured myself wearing a special suit to walk through wild swarms of cicadas and bugs crawling all over me. I considered holing up in my house until they were gone, like this lady.

It turned out the cicada swarm was much milder than expected that year. There were practically none at my house. There were quite a few in northern Virginia where I worked. The cicadas climbed on the window as I worked, peering in at me. When I walked a few blocks away to get a sandwich for lunch, one flew and landed on me. Panicked swatting ensued and it flew away. People walking by on the street, rather than offering to help, just looked at me with eyes wide as if to say, “Glad it didn’t land on me!”

This year we are seeing some activity at our house but “swarmageddon” would be an exaggeration. There are numerous molted cicada shells on the ground and the plants.

Once in a while we see an actual adult cicada. A few days ago, after a mild rain, we went on an evening walk and listened by the edge of the forest. Underneath the carpet of decaying oak leaves on the ground, it sounded like Rice Krispies. There were a few cicada nymphs scurrying about on top of the leaves, making a scratch-scratch sound with their legs. I tried not to think about what we would see the next morning.

But we didn’t see much at all! I don’t know if the cicadas like to stay beneath the leaves or if they flew away to more interesting places or if they were eaten. The bird population this year seems to have increased exponentially and we are enjoying hearing all the songbirds. We also have a huge population of skinks this year. One even entered our house somehow and my husband had to catch it.

While I remain a bit freaked out by the cicadas, my children find them curious and a great natural science lesson. A wonderful and brave mom at my daughter’s school helped my daughter hold a cicada and let it crawl up her arm. To my amazement, my daughter did not panic and just had fun interacting with this weird creature.

This terrific mom also pointed me to a video about cicadas by the famous David Attenborough. The best part of this video to me was learning that we can now add “cicada” to the list of words that are pronounced differently in British and American English. You say si-CAY-duh, I say si-KAH-duh!

I found my own response to the cicadas softening by watching my daughter. My older daughter did the Bedtime Math Problem a few days back which asked her to calculate how old she would be when the cicadas came back in 17 years. I was shocked to realize that she will be grown, perhaps married or even with a family of her own by then! I can’t imagine the shock of the cicadas when they pop back out of the ground 17 years from now. What an amazing existence!

For now, we are trying to enjoy this quirk of nature and appreciate the beauty of the cicadas. It’s helping . . . but I still don’t want them to touch me!

Update: For a fascinating look at how scientists are organizing data on the Brood II cicada emergence or to report your own cicada emergence, check out this page from Radiolab.