Yes, they are here and on some parts of the Cape the Brood XIV is having the party of the summer. As the temperatures grow warmer they grow louder, and in some areas people complain about the din. Of course they’re loud! If you were only able to mate for a couple of weeks every seventeen years, you might be be boisterous about it too. I don’t mind the chorus…frankly, we’re witnessing a seventeen year miracle and it’s both a wonder and great fun. Here are some photos that I’ve taken at a local conservation area in Sandwich, plus some let’s-have-fun-with-this graphics as well.
A black insect with red, beady eyes and wings that look as if they were designed in a Tiffany stained glass studio. Sure, maybe it’s a face that only a mother could love, but all in all an insect with STYLE.
My dog is getting board with how often I stop to take photos on our morning walk. “Why is she so interested in these bugs?” he seems to be wondering.
Yesterday I caught one of the cicadas emerging from its exoskeleton. When the nymphs are ready to shed that skin, they cling on very tightly to the leaf or tree trunk…so tightly, in fact, that the husk still clings to those plants for days afterwards. I guess that if I were climbing out of my skin several feet above the ground I’d want a good, steading grip too.
In some places we see dozens of these amazing insects…yet a few feet or miles away there are none at all. People in the outer Cape are experiencing FOMO since they don’t have any.
If a creature only appears every 17 years, you have to have fun with it, right?
The empty husks look like abandoned cicada motorhomes…anyone need a dwelling?
One minute of cicadas movie from Sandwich MA
If you’re fortunate enough to be on Cape Cod right now, get to a place in Mashpee, Sandwich, or Falmouth where this periodic miracle is happening. The one mile walk though Boyden Farm Conservation land, just down the street from the Sandwich Police on Cotuit Road, is a great place to experience this wonder. (And visitors are fond of taking photos of themselves with the sign that says Sandwich Police…not many communities have law enforcement that patrols lunch food.)
Cicada, meet Hydrangea. It’s a total Cape Cod Experience on June 12th. I don’t know if they’re worried when I get up close to them with my iPhone camera, so I usually explain that I’m their #1 fangirl.
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