The Cicada Tree
Posted on June 10, 2021 Posted by John Scalzi 16 Comments
For your entertainment: 20 seconds of the very loud cicada swarm loitering on the crabapple tree in our front yard. They’re definitely swarming right now. Also, enjoy the crabapple tree while you can, it’s mostly dead at this point and we’ll be replacing it soonish. All things must pass, some quickly, like cicadas, and others in a more deliberative fashion, like the crabapple tree. Sorry, that got dark, didn’t it.
— JS
Gotta say I prefer thinking about donuts to thinking about cicadas.
We have to drive about an hour to see/hear cicadas but, we were there today for lunch. Since last week they’re more…underfoot than they were. Maybe they’re getting tired from all the “socializing.”
When the local brood emerged in the greater Kansas City area a few years ago, the wooded areas sounded like UFOs were landing. That was one of the most unusual sounds I’ve ever experienced.
They’re a lot more active than New Mexico cicadas (regular ones that appear every summer)! And loud. Definitely louder. Is the fluctuation in pitch and volume how they really sound or something about the recording? They’re kinda like fans at a rock concert, all making big noise at the same time then quieting down.
Cicadas are always a strong “sound of summer” to me. Growing up we had a cabin at Lake Texoma where I spent every weekend and they were a constant background sound. I had forgotten the sound after living in a more urban area for many years, until I went to fix some IT problems at a research annex we had out in the country. Suddenly, there was the sound again, forgotten for years, and memories of a childhood at the lake suddenly hit me.
🎶 Oh, cicada tree! Oh, cicada tree!
Oh how much you deafen me! 🎶
I live in Oklahoma, and it seems like we always had cicadas – Aliens shouting and shaking the bushes and leaving strange skeletons. Faded out, over the years. I noticed today multiple one inch or so holes in the yard where the current breed have launched!
I don’t think it counts as dark until you start talking about firewood.
Amazing! Thanks for posting! (My folks had crabapple trees in their backyard years ago. I think Mom made a crabbapple pie once, the only time she got the fruit before the birds did!)
Wrong time of year for it here, but in summer they reach eardrum-shattering volume in the dense eucalypt bushlands and leafy suburbs.
Hope you are replacing the moribund crabapple tree with a fresh young crabapple tree! The fruit makes a tart, delicious jelly – unbeatable with French toast. Assuming that (a) someone is willing to do the preserving work, and (b) birds don’t harvest the crop first!
Not dark to me. Memento Mori.
https://dailystoic.com/memento-mori/
Huh. Neat. Not thing that happens in my climate.
Oh, lord! That sound IS awful. It sounds like you have 1950s movie space aliens outside your house. I can’t imagine the dreams you must be having through this.
Cool!
You know, we had cicadas every year in Tucson, so when I heard the endless hype about this 17 year swarm, I was all ho hum about it. I have to say, I am impressed. The quantity of those prehistoric aliens you are experiencing is biblical.
I grew up in Ohio. The cicadas had also killed a young tree. My dad had the brilliant idea to light the tree on fire, lasting images of flaming cicadas flying into the evening dusk. Hey John, that would be a great picture.