Health & Fitness
Cicadas, Singing After 13 Years
We've got six weeks of cicadas, or locusts as we call them. Did you know there are 2,600 different kinds of them in the world?
We are in the midst of a remarkable insect cycle. It is hard to believe the chorus in our trees began as another cycle laid their eggs in 1998, and the new born nymphys drill up and out of the ground to climb trees where they attach themselves to leaves, and when mature, the cicadas come out of the shells and soon begin their mating song.
There are some who have a different cycle, and in other years, we experience only a few insects, but since it is estimated that each female will produce more than 500 eggs, it is no wonder that in the current year, we have an abundance of new locusts as we used to call them. They do not eat the leaves of trees, but drill into the limbs or trunks to get the sap, known as Xylen, for food. Sometimes, if too many attach to a given tree, one might see discolor in the leaves because of loss of the sap.
As I type this, two of them made their way to my office window screen for a few minutes and then went their way. Each morning I have to sweep the dead carcasses off my front porch and back deck, so they have a limited life span. No saving for the future or investment worries there.
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I am told there are about 2,600 different kinds of cicadas in the world, so there has been much research carried out on them. We will have about a six-week period from first chirp to the end of this cycle, so be prepared to listen. Because our area has a lot of trees, we are bound to have a large supply of cicadas again. They certainly love my tulip tree in my backyard, as it has plentiful Xylen to serve its branches, blooms and leaves.
If you haven't seen a cicada up close, come over some morning to sweep my deck and use them for fish bait for fertilizer.
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I close this today thinking about attending a memorial for one of my VFW buddies who served in the Navy in the South Pacific in WWII. Remember the battle of Midway, June 4, 1942; 69 years ago today as it became the turning point in the war against Japan. A lot of great servicemen from the United States and Japan died that day.