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Praetorium Honoris

Saturday, May 29, 2021

Loud

A 17-year cicada, Magicicada, Robert Evans Snodgrass, 1930

Brood X.

Holy crap they are loud.

I remember cicadas from one humid summer in Korea.

Nothing like this.

The noise is a constant hum in the distance, then the ones close in start up. Racket doesn't quite describe it.

Discarded exoskeletons everywhere.

Holy cow!

Makes your head ache it does.



17 comments:

  1. How Loud? IIRC the last time I heard them was in early 60s back home in Illinois. I recall driving down the hwy in our families "second car", a 1958 Nash Rambler stick-shift station-wagon with no ac and, at 70mph and with all the road noise w. the windows rolled down, their sound from the trees as one rolled past was still deafening!

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    Replies
    1. Yep, had the same experience growing up in Northern Illinois. The droning they make can be really obnoxious.

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  2. They were a pretty much constant background noise in Texas summers while I was a kid and young adult. Then there were the "cicada killer" wasps that were terrifyingly huge, but didn't mess with people very often, thank goodness!

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  3. We had them every day in the summers in Lubbock, just like Tom said. We must've been neighbors at some point. Those cicada killers were evil looking...

    Sarge, just focus on it for a while. Look around... They usually have two different choruses... Chi-chi-chi-chaaaa.... over and over or that pulsating hum. After a while, it'll fade off to the background.... Then suddenly they all stop, and you do too, wondering what is wrong.... oh yeah, no cicadas.... Then they tune back up.... That is a song of the south, no doubt.

    Welcome to cherished memories of my childhood...

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    1. Neighbors in some ways, for sure.
      I almost forgot the times that our cat(s) would catch the things and bring them into the house without killing them - when they unexpectedly start up inside, it is startlingly LOUD!!! And I do mean jump out of your shoes LOUD!

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    2. One of my earliest memories is catching one in Plainview and turning it loose in the house. I remember dad standing on the couch trying to catch it as it flew around.

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  4. Scream bugs.


    https://lackadaisycats.com/exhibit.php?exhibitid=519

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  5. Meh. It's better noise than the idiots with stereos so loud you can hear parts shaking loose.

    I like the sound. I can sleep to cicadas. And they don't set off my tinnitus nor do they wash out my ability to hear.

    Now... one darned mosquito... that will wake me up from a dead sleep.

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  6. Sarge, I have read there is a 17 year cycle for some brand of cicada this year.

    Oddly enough, one of my fondest memories of being in Japan when we were on tour and I was a pre-teen was walking through this older town along a canal and how loud the cicadas were. It was the first time I had heard them and at least in that sense, is always a good reminisce.

    Now? "Dear Lord, Shut It Down!"

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  7. Unfortunately, they'll keep it up for another 4 weeks or so. Try not to go crazy until then. However, the sound will diminish somewhat as the first ones to emerge will die off in the next 2 weeks or so.

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    1. It rained today and it's chilly. Quieted them right down!

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  8. I understand they are quite nutritious. Mayhap someone who has been to school in Panama can verify or rebut. Old Guns

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  9. Yeah, they’re quite the thing. NOT the same as the summer cicadas. They sing a different song, and they hatch in unbelievable swarms, and they scream all day until they shut up in the evening, and then they wake up and do it again.

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  10. @OAFS/

    "Lots of recipes on line.."

    You first, Sarge--and don't look over you're shoulder expecting to see me second in line, either. I won't even be on the horizon! :)

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