Robin Writes: Cicadas should be heard and not seen
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By Robin Garrison Leach
The cicada invasion of 2024 is almost here. This one promises to be epic, and it will certainly be the last double emergence everyone alive now will experience.
I’m trying to be positive about the fact that these huge, ugly insects are about to set out on a search for love and procreation.
These bugs have no other goal in life than to dig up from tree roots, make noise, and mate. Momma cicada makes slits in branches and tucks her eggs inside. Then, mom and dad enjoy a few weeks of buzzing and waddling/flying/clunking into my head/ until they die.
From what I’ve read, the cicadas have no defenses against predators. The nearly trillion visiting us this year should be enough to procreate successfully. I don’t begrudge them their life cycles. I just wish they’d do it in a distant forest, where I can only hear them having fun.
Cicadas are ugly. Their eyes are red and beady; I can understand that, given their years spent in mud and their exhausting search for love. They have 6 serrated, sticky little legs that can cling to clothes and hair.
The color of their bodies is a chewed-tobacco brownish black that blends in with the limbs and branches they populate, but does little to save them from being gobbled.
I think cicadas must be nature’s worst ‘Hide and Seek’ players. They build up their population over years, dig up from dirt that is the same color as they are, trundle up inside trees and bushes with sticky stealth. And scream.
I don’t know about you, but when I heard, “Ready or not, here I come!” as a kid, I tried to be quiet. I hunched rigidly in my hiding spot and prayed nobody would catch sight of my sweaty-slick body. I may have giggled to myself once or twice in tiny huffs, but I had hands to cover the sound.
And, I didn’t flock toward bright lights, like these guys do.
Cicadas make no attempt to avoid detection from birds and animals who find them tasty. They are on a mission to find love, and the only way to find that special someone is to buzz and click and drone. Seems unfair, somehow.
The hotter the day, the louder the male cicadas click. They undulate their abdominal muscles like Chippendales dancers, as if trying to out-flex their fellow-maters. All this noise is attractive to the ladies.
When a female is interested, she doesn’t yell. She clicks her wings in staccato agreement, and the party starts.
I’m fine with all of that. And good for them for being unashamed of their singular intentions. There’s no time for dating. They only have a month or so to live.
I have to say here that I love the sound of cicadas. It is perhaps my favorite natural sound on earth; I look forward to every late-summer symphony. Experts say this huge combined emergence will drone as loudly as chainsaws, but I don’t think I’ll mind.
I am, however, petrified to see the cicadas. I don’t want to touch them. Step on them. Feel them crawling up my arm. Find one hiding in a snarl in my hair. And I think all those things may happen this year.
In signature Chicken Little paranoia, I bought a beekeeper’s hat yesterday. Its brim is nearly as wide as a Hula Hoop, with a netting/veil that reaches to my shoulders. It will be a challenge to clear the back door frame with it on, but I will be wearing it daily once the dive bombing attacks begin.
As soon as the ground warms to 64 degrees, our lonely friends will start drilling up from the depths. I’m ready.
• Robin is a freelance columnist who lives and writes in Quincy, Illinois. Contact her at [email protected].
