Among Friends

[on the bay]

@catter70 ,

No, I used to live in MD and I remember that huge swarm of locusts flying through the air-giant

things hitting our faces. I don't know if you remember that year but though I have seen locusts again, never like that before. My kids were young and remember it too.

This was totally different-in the house and covered with flies-they were flies and we had no idea how they could have come out of nowhere with no windows open.

[nova]

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@catter70 wrote:

@on the bay , I just googled it and MD, PA and NJ, along with several other states, are hot spots for  hatching of the 17 year locust that says they will hatch sometime this month or next month. As soon as the ground warms up. 

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I live in central NJ and you are correct - the Brood X Cicadas are due to appear around May when it gets a little warmer here.  I must admit I am a big baby - I know they are harmless but the appearance is off-putting.  Much much worse than them are a type of bee called Cicada-killers which my husband & I have witnessed.  They are extremely large bees that purposely go down to the dirt & back up hunting for the cicadas.  I have been stung by bees more than once & these look like aliens.

[just bee]

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@nova wrote:

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@catter70 wrote:

@on the bay , I just googled it and MD, PA and NJ, along with several other states, are hot spots for  hatching of the 17 year locust that says they will hatch sometime this month or next month. As soon as the ground warms up. 

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I live in central NJ and you are correct - the Brood X Cicadas are due to appear around May when it gets a little warmer here.  I must admit I am a big baby - I know they are harmless but the appearance is off-putting.  Much much worse than them are a type of bee called Cicada-killers which my husband & I have witnessed.  They are extremely large bees that purposely go down to the dirt & back up hunting for the cicadas.  I have been stung by bees more than once & these look like aliens.

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@nova 

I must intervene here.  The cicada killer is a wasp.  None of my relatives would kill a cicada. 

[nova]

@just bee   Yes you are correct - they are killer wasps.  Horrifying creatures.

[chickenbutt]

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@just bee wrote:

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@Shelbelle wrote:

Yes, here in MD we are due for the circadas very soon, for about 3 weeks until early June. I have heard they do have a taste similar to shrimp!! 

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@Shelbelle 

In some places they're considered a delicacy.  We eat shrimp, crab and lobster -- why not snack on a cicada?

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Being from the West Coast / West Coast adjacent, I've never seen one of those.  They are kind of cute. 

If I saw a swam, especially of bees I suppose since bees terrify me, I'd probably just drop dead.

The flies that somebody mentioned - UGHHHHH!  Flies are the grossest thing next to egg salad, IMO.   A swam of flies and I'm never going outside again! 

[just bee]

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@nova wrote:

@just bee   Yes you are correct - they are killer wasps.  Horrifying creatures.

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@nova 

Agree.  Wasps tend to be antisocial SOBs.

[just bee]

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@chickenbutt wrote:

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@just bee wrote:

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@Shelbelle wrote:

Yes, here in MD we are due for the circadas very soon, for about 3 weeks until early June. I have heard they do have a taste similar to shrimp!! 

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@Shelbelle 

In some places they're considered a delicacy.  We eat shrimp, crab and lobster -- why not snack on a cicada?

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Being from the West Coast / West Coast adjacent, I've never seen one of those.  They are kind of cute. 

If I saw a swam, especially of bees I suppose since bees terrify me, I'd probably just drop dead.

The flies that somebody mentioned - UGHHHHH!  Flies are the grossest thing next to egg salad, IMO.   A swam of flies and I'm never going outside again! 

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@chickenbutt 

My mother moved us from Chicago to Prescott, AZ when I was ten.  One day I was at my friend's house, all the way up the hill, when I heard someone screaming.  Instinctively, I knew the source.

I ran downhill, with Suzie not far behind me, and found my mother in the yard pointing at something that looked like this:

All she could say was: "It's from outer space... from outer space..."

We soon discovered that it was a cicada that had moulted, leaving its "shell" behind on a stick.

The rest of the summer we had cicadas falling out of trees on our heads and our cats bringing them into the house, playing with them, then hiding them in our shoes and between our bedsheets.

A summer I'll never forget.  Thank goodness it's only every 17 years, I thought.

But we left Arizona that winter.  Twenty-five years later I find myself living in Albuquerque.  Cicadas again.  Every year.

Several species out there...

[candyagain]

Here in New England we've had similar occurences with gypsy moths. I was driving home one day and the road was covered in gypsy moth larvae! I thought it was leaf buds from the trees until the rosd started "waving"...very strange experience. Then I realized it was thousands of worms....ugh. Luckily, my street was yards away and when I turned into it it was clear.

I couldn't go out on my deck for awhile that spring as tons of the larva were descending from the trees on little threads. They would irritate your skin. Itchy.

The sad part was the damage and death to many lovely trees until the town and state

started spraying. My outdoor (at the time) cats had to be kept inside and were very upset.

[drizzellla]

PENNSYLVANIA — Residents in several Pennsylvania counties have a chance to be a part of an ecological phenomenon that only occurs once every 17 years.

An unprecedented citizen science effort gets launched nationwide, as parts of 15 states will see billions of Brood X 17-year cicadas emerge in May or June. The public is invited to help scholars track and better understand this extraordinary natural display.

In Pennsylvania, impacted counties include Adams, Bedford, Berks, Bucks, Chester, Columbia, County, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Fulton, Huntingdon, Lancaster, Lehigh, Luzerne, Lycoming, Mercer, Montgomery, Northampton, Perry, Schuylkill, Somerset, and York.

Cicadas are expected to emerge in the state in late May or early June.

Anyone with a smartphone can download the free Cicada Safari app to help with the data collection on the emergence Brood X — or Great Eastern Brood, as this population also is known. It's just a matter of snapping a photo or short video and uploading it. The app automatically captures the time, date and geographical coordinates. Once the images are verified, the information is mapped.

Parts of Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia will also see the emergence of Brood X.

In Pennsylvania, the following specific communities are expected to be hotspots, researchers say:

• Archbald, Artemas, Bedford, Carroll Valley, Coopersburg, Dinosaur Rock, Downingtown, Gettysburg, Green Lane, Kintnersville, Lake Nockamixon, Lancaster, Lititz, Malvern, Mertztown, Mohnton, Mt Gretna, Oaks, Oley, Perkasie, Perkiomenville, Phoenixville, Pittston, Quakertown, Red Lion, Roaring Spring, Solebury, Spring Mount, Stewartstown, Topton, Upper Black Eddy, and Warwick Park.

[Eileen in Virginia]

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@just bee wrote:

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@Eileen in Virginia wrote:

They're most likely honeybees. Every year a neighbor on our Next Door posts a reminder that this is when the honeybees tend to swarm as they move their hives. She asks everyone to call her to relocate them instead of calling an exterminator. 

If they were cicadas, you'd know it. They're big (almost as big as my thumb), ugly with beady red eyes and loud. Their only redeeming trait is that they don't bite or hurt you . They're just creepy! 

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@Eileen in Virginia 

One more redeeming trait: They're crunchy and delicious!  Our dog catches them and chows down. 

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@just bee  Eww! An exterminator told me another redeeming trait yesterday - free aeration for your lawn! I called them after seeing weird mud tunnels under our deck steps. They were about an inch in diameter and free-standing, as opposed to against a wall. Some were 3 or 4 inches tall. As the cicadas begin working their way to the surface, they'll build these mud caps from moist dirt to prevent rain water from flooding their burrows and drowning them before they're fully emerged. This was interesting, but I was thrilled to hear that we didn't have some species of monster termites. 🥳

ETA: he also said we'd be seeing some really fat raccoons and foxes soon. They love them!