[masraum]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

The cicadas are out in force now. It's like something out of a horror movie. Once they come out of the ground and shed their shells they take off flying randomly until they hit something to grab onto. Every surface has cicadas stuck to it. The house, my truck, all the plants, fences - everything. For the past two days every blade of grass on the lawn under a tree has one or two cicadas clinging to it, waiting to take off. We can't walk out of the house without getting hit in the face, and we always find them clinging to our clothes. The dogs love them, but eating too many is supposedly not good for them, so we have to watch the dogs all the time.
People complain about the sound, but that's not as bad as the sheer numbers of them clinging to everything. Every wooded area emits a sound like a low pitched football stadium roar. Once you get close to them it sounds like tinnitus, which I'm used to, so no big deal. They are loudest during the hottest part of the day and go quiet by dark. This is supposed to go on for 5 to 6 weeks.






These are the shells of the nymphs which crawl out of the ground.

I've seen cicadas all of my life. I've never experienced "the big one" like you're seeing up there.

I don't think I've seen a single cicada yet this year.

When I was a teen and lived in northern Japan, I think one year we had a small brood pop out. There were a lot of them and they seemed much louder than usual, but nothing like what you show in the photos above.