CICADAS!

This past weekend, our trail went from the old house to the new and back again multiple times. We didn’t get the chance to explore any woods because we were busy discovering the woods of our own backyard.

We have, however, run into something that I’ve never experienced before. Cicadas!

I’m not mourning the loss of love bugs since I moved away from Florida. I didn’t know I was going to get such a remarkable replacement.  This year, anyway. After the next few weeks, I won’t see them again for 13 years.

These creatures are everywhere right now. You can hear them any time you walk outdoors, whether it be deep in the woods or an upscale subdivision. It’s their mating call. And apparently, it works.

They live an interesting, if uneventful, life. They answer the mating call. The female lays eggs. Tiny larvae about an eighth of an inch long hatch as the adult dies. The larva digs into the ground about ten inches deep and stays there. For THIRTEEN years!

Then they make their way to the surface, and the whole cycle starts over again.

Here’s a video I took at Eno River State Park with the Cicadian Love Song in the background:

We found corpses everywhere in the park. Look under any leaf, and you’ll find evidence the cycle is at work.

So here’s my question:  How do they know when thirteen years have passed?  Is there a Head Cicada with a calendar?  Is someone marking seasons on a tree root with a piece of charred firewood? Did they simply call down to the front desk and leave a wakeup call?

Just another one of Nature’s great mysteries. It works because it works. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be talking about it.

Or listening to them.

Happy Trails!