Community Chat

[Spurt]

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@stevieb wrote:

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@Spurt wrote:

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@songbird wrote:

Wish they were gone already, but they are starting to die.  Lots of dead cicadas underfoot.  The noise is diminished, but some stragglers are still flying (or trying to fly) around.  I have to sweep the walkway and drive way everyday.  I think (not sure) they will be gone by late June or early July.  My husband saw a cicada fly upside down! Like a hummingbird.  No major goofs with the cicadas.  Only once when I went to get the mail (a package) hitched a ride on it. And was sitting quietly on my bed while I unknowingly opened the package.  Picked it up and flushed it down the toilet.  God will punish me....

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@songbird 

Here's something funny -----  NFL teams held minicamps this week, and a cicada got caught in the beard of my team's quarterback, Ryan Fitzpatrick....LOL

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@Spurt... I'm sure lots of things get caught in that nasty looking mess... 

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@stevieb 

...he's part Santa Claus, part grizzly "bear"(very hairy chest), and part quarterback....😄 but performance wise should be better than what the team has had in recent years..

[stevieb]

I guess I don't get all the antipathy. To me, them showing up like clock work every seventeen years or so is one of the wonders of nature. They're harmless. Where I live, they are clearly winding down and while they are a bit invasive and the noise can be a bit off-putting, I'll sort of miss them when they're gone, knowing I might or might not see them show up again. We have regular summer cicadas every year and their 'music' sort of signifies the season, but these mass influxes are, to me, sort of interesting and are a somewhat amazing freak of nature.

[Spurt]

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@stevieb wrote:

I guess I don't get all the antipathy. To me, them showing up like clock work every seventeen years or so is one of the wonders of nature. They're harmless. Where I live, they are clearly winding down and while they are a bit invasive and the noise can be a bit off-putting, I'll sort of miss them when they're gone, knowing I might or might not see them show up again. We have regular summer cicadas every year and their 'music' sort of signifies the season, but these mass influxes are, to me, sort of interesting and are a somewhat amazing freak of nature.

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@stevieb 

Yes, an interesting phenomenon of nature....  what I dont understand are these newscasters that INSIST on trying them as something to be sure add to one's daily diet.....🤢

[novamc1]

To me, the 17-tyear cicadas are a useless, annoying blight on  daily lives when they show up with uncanny regularity.

They serve no good environmental purpose that I know of.  Pets get sick trying to eat them.  Car paint can get damaged by them.  Certain businesses, real estate for one, have a hard time operating normally with property showings and sales when they're around. People have to  stay inside to avoid them.

And of course, there are reports of accidents on the road because of their swarms.

They emerge from the ground, clutter the air with noise and mess in search of mates,  lay eggs in the bark that they chew up on trees and deciduous shrubs---with the sole purpose of  creating another generation to emerge from the ground in another 17 years.  They die right after they produce eggs.  

I'm living peacefully without them down here in the South, have no fond memories of them twice in my lifetime living in Virginia.  Hope they don't discover how much greenery we have here and hope they wouldn't find our red clay and often sandy soil ideal for recreating themselves.

It's fortunate that they don't demonstrate the flying ability to travel far from already-established territories.  

[songbird]

They're terrible fliers that scare people when they swoop around trying to find trees.  People have been nearly hit by cars, trying to get away from them. They are only driven to mate. They don't eat.  They do damage some trees.  Smart people put nets over small trees and shrubs.  You get used to stepping on them.  There are three species of cicadas.  They range is size from a half an inch and  over an inch.  We seem to have two of the species. As soon as they mate, they die. The species here will hang around till July. They will in no way harm you.  The reason some people don't get them is development.  The ground is broken up, killing the cicadas while underground.  Can you imagine what they must have been like to the early settlers in the colonies?  LOL.  Before parking lots, pavements, etc.

[songbird]

@KingstonsMom   There are worse things.  In Australia they have a plague of toads.  Millions of them hopping and hopping.  I wold go mad.  Australia has tremendous heat and very obnoxious creatures all around.  Deadly snakes too.  Can you imagine millions of toads coming to your neighborhood?

[Glittergal]

Flushing the cicada was cruel.  You could have just placed him outside. 

[sunshine45]

baltimore area here and we have had THOUSANDS!!!!!

in the trees, on the walkways, flying around, dead underfoot......they are EVERYWHERE. the only thing that has stopped them the past two days is all of the rain we have had. i will be glad when they are gone. the noise they create is also hard to take day after day.......we have been running the air conditioning due to the heat AND the noise.

[KingstonsMom]

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@songbird wrote:

@KingstonsMom   There are worse things.  In Australia they have a plague of toads.  Millions of them hopping and hopping.  I wold go mad.  Australia has tremendous heat and very obnoxious creatures all around.  Deadly snakes too.  Can you imagine millions of toads coming to your neighborhood?

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@songbird 

So true!

I always thought that my dream vacation would be a trip to Australia, until I read up on all of the deadly and HUGE creatures!

If I ever ran into a Huntsman spider, I'd die of a heart attack!

 

[nova]

I went out to a restaurant recently (first nice dinner out in so long) in Princeton NJ.  The cicadas seemed to have taken over the town.  The sound is deafening and even though I know they don't mean to hurt you just the presence of so many large critters all over is off-putting.  I was also worried one would hitch a ride back to my house inadvertently.  There are local news spots on TV lately explaining how some people have used them as food sources too - from tacos to one bizarre story of them being used in ice cream.  A big NO THANK YOU from me!!!!