Cicadas 2021 - Brood X

[Iceresistance]

The Cicada Army has taken over several neighborhoods up there as I heard about, my Yearly Cicadas are expected in Mid-June . . . 

[Iceresistance]

1 hour ago, vastateofmind said:

They grossed me out 17 some years ago...I never killed any but avoided them like Randy did/does. And yeah, I've let FIVE crawl all over my hands today. They're basically a ladybug....with pterodactyl-sized wings and blood-curdling giant red eyes. Actually, the ones I held today were perfectly content to hang out on my fingers or hand...my previous experience with cicadas is that they fled us giant beings with great effort. They're humorously clumsy.   

Same thing to me . . .

Last year, several were eaten by my cats . . . (I only have the Yearly Cicadas . . . )

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

3 hours ago, vastateofmind said:

They grossed me out 17 some years ago...I never killed any but avoided them like Randy did/does. And yeah, I've let FIVE crawl all over my hands today. They're basically a ladybug....with pterodactyl-sized wings and blood-curdling giant red eyes. Actually, the ones I held today were perfectly content to hang out on my fingers or hand...my previous experience with cicadas is that they fled us giant beings with great effort. They're humorously clumsy.   

Haha! I hear you. Personally I kind of find them and their whole 17 year life cycle fascinating. The other day I actually "rescued" a few nymphs crawling along the sidewalk and put them on a nearby tree! 

[RDM]

Had a few dozen on several of our trees as of Wednesday.  Starting Wednesday night they've exploded.  The trunks of all our trees are now covered, except the pines.  But even the pines have some on them.  Each of our large maple trees have hundreds of shells and others in various stages of molting.  The ground under the tree's canopy is a moving mass of crawling chaos. 

[WxUSAF]

Many trees in our neighborhood have some on them now. Big change in last 24-48 hours. Still not a lot in my yard. Haven’t heard any singing yet.

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

Plenty more emerging around here, seems to have been going on the past couple of nights this weekend.  It's odd, I've seen a couple of trees where they have been coming out quite a bit, but others where there is nothing so far.  And this one wooded area has tons of holes and turrets in the ground which I can only assume are cicada tunnels coming up...but not so much as a single shell that I saw yet.  Maybe they're waiting a bit more, or it's still a bit cooler there relatively speaking.  No singing thus far that I've heard, though at times I *think* I can hear something in the distance.  Maybe these first ones all became Scooby Snacks, as I haven't seen any fully developed ones (black/orange) either.  Or maybe it takes awhile before they really start their chorus.  I imagine with the much warmer weather expected next week, we might see and hear more!

[Kmlwx]

Have to imagine the cooler weather played at least some role in the splotchy emergence. Still really not much evidence around here. I've yet to see my first shell OR live cicada. Thought i Heard some of the singing in the distance the other day - but may have been imagining it. I've only been able to find one or two trees on my parent's property that have any holes. 

My condo up in Hanover/Arundel Mills is in a new-ish development so I'm doubting there will be any emergence there at all (it was all bulldozed/dug up in the years leading up to the neighborhood being built). 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

2 minutes ago, Kmlwx said:

Have to imagine the cooler weather played at least some role in the splotchy emergence. Still really not much evidence around here. I've yet to see my first shell OR live cicada. Thought i Heard some of the singing in the distance the other day - but may have been imagining it. I've only been able to find one or two trees on my parent's property that have any holes. 

My condo up in Hanover/Arundel Mills is in a new-ish development so I'm doubting there will be any emergence there at all (it was all bulldozed/dug up in the years leading up to the neighborhood being built). 

Could be that the cooler first part of this month played a role.  What's interesting is that I looked back at the photos I have from the 2004 emergence, and I recall that May being quite warm.  In looking at the dates on the photos when they were really starting to emerge, it was around May 18.  And they were going full bore not long after that.  For some reason, I had thought it was a lot earlier than that in May 2004 but apparently not.

There are plenty of places nearby where I'm at that have not been developed, they're sort of wooded areas around a creek and such.  I'm sure nearly all those trees are a fair bit older than 17 years and were left "undisturbed".  But thus far haven't seen anything from there yet, other than the holes I mentioned above.  The trees where I have seen with them coming out, strangely enough, are on and right near the apartment property I live at...but those trees are pretty old too, and there hasn't been any development here in that time.  Maybe it's a bit warmer (or just enough so) with more sun getting in there, compared to the more wooded regions.

[North Balti Zen]

Cicada cancel cancel. 

They are in the yard now and on one of my trees. 

[Kmlwx]

1 minute ago, Always in Zugzwang said:

Could be that the cooler first part of this month played a role.  What's interesting is that I looked back at the photos I have from the 2004 emergence, and I recall that May being quite warm.  In looking at the dates on the photos when they were really starting to emerge, it was around May 18.  And they were going full bore not long after that.  For some reason, I had thought it was a lot earlier than that in May 2004 but apparently not.

There are plenty of places nearby where I'm at that have not been developed, they're sort of wooded areas around a creek and such.  I'm sure nearly all those trees are a fair bit older than 17 years and were left "undisturbed".  But thus far haven't seen anything from there yet, other than the holes I mentioned above.  The trees where I have seen with them coming out, strangely enough, are on and right near the apartment property I live at...but those trees are pretty old too, and there hasn't been any development here in that time.  Maybe it's a bit warmer (or just enough so) with more sun getting in there, compared to the more wooded regions.

My parent's house sits on the edge of NW Branch Park in the Colesville, MD area. If you're familiar with the area near Kemp Mill Rd and Randolph - they are sort of in that general area. My memory from 2004 is pretty spotty I'd assume. I remember it being a big deal and them going splat on the car windshield while driving - but I'm struggling to remember how prolific (or not) they were in the actual neighborhood. Their house was built in the 60s, and there really hasn't been new construction of homes at all in the past decades. I do seem to remember the noise being so loud it was creepy back then.

[H2O]

6 minutes ago, North Balti Zen said:

Cicada cancel cancel. 

They are in the yard now and on one of my trees. 

I had one sitting by my sliding glass door this morning.  Not sure his intentions(yes i know it was a male thanks to @wxtrix and how to ID them).  He looked hangry so i gave him a donut

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

Couple more photos from them emerging the other night...

Synchronized emerging!  A new Olympic sport?  Damn Soviet judges deducted 2 points for no reason! 

 

And, wings spreading out...

[Kmlwx]

Every time I see a picture or video of them coming out of the shells - I think of the movie Alien  

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

8 minutes ago, Kmlwx said:

Every time I see a picture or video of them coming out of the shells - I think of the movie Alien  

Haha, yeah!  Though the cicadas are somewhat cuter and far less dangerous!!

(ETA:  I mean, you gotta love the Groucho Marx eyebrows they have!)

[Rhode Islander in Balto]

For Baltimore folks, there's a "cicada bot" in Wyman Park that posts soil temperatures and cicada obs several times a day: https://twitter.com/CicadaWp  Soil temps in the shade still in the mid 50's, so might explain why they've been slow to emerge, though I've seen a few exoskeletons in my yard here in Parkville.

 

[North Balti Zen]

1 hour ago, Rhode Islander in Balto said:

For Baltimore folks, there's a "cicada bot" in Wyman Park that posts soil temperatures and cicada obs several times a day: https://twitter.com/CicadaWp  Soil temps in the shade still in the mid 50's, so might explain why they've been slow to emerge, though I've seen a few exoskeletons in my yard here in Parkville.

 

My entire yard is pretty much shade and I am about a mile and a half from Wyman Park so that explains it perhaps. 

[IUsedToHateCold]

Just took a walk around the neighborhood.  Total infestation. Trees covered, piles of them everywhere. It’s for real. 
 

 

[SnowenOutThere]

5 minutes ago, IUsedToHateCold said:

Just took a walk around the neighborhood.  Total infestation. Trees covered, piles of them everywhere. It’s for real. 
 

 

Yeah its nuts but for me it is only at one house, not any other in the whole neighborhood. 

[IUsedToHateCold]

2 minutes ago, SnowenOutThere said:

Yeah its nuts but for me it is only at one house, not any other in the whole neighborhood. 

Any house with an older tree in my neighborhood has them. Unless it’s a pine tree, they don’t seem to like those 

[gunny23]

7 minutes ago, IUsedToHateCold said:

Any house with an older tree in my neighborhood has them. Unless it’s a pine tree, they don’t seem to like those 

I have lots of older trees in my yard, mostly shaded.  The one that gets the most sun is really starting to pop. I'm just starting to see a few on my other trees.

 

[George BM]

I'm finally seeing the exoskeletons on my maple tree in the front yard. Around 5-7 in total. 

[Kay]

Still nothing here but was in College Park/Hyattsville yesterday and it was #happening.

[RDM]

5 hours ago, George BM said:

I'm finally seeing the exoskeletons on my maple tree in the front yard. Around 5-7 in total. 

Interesting. We're not far from each other and each trunk of our maple trees has hundreds or more shells on the trunk, not including just as many scattered on the ground at the base of each tree.  They onslaught really exploded starting last Wednesday.  They really congregate in numbers around maples, locust and other hardwoods compared to pines.  But even our white pines have a hundred or more on each trunk.  The birds are dive bombing the clusters on the ground.  Some appear so gorged it's hard for them to lift off again.  

[mattie g]

Took a walk in the woods surrounding our neighborhood this morning with the girls and pup. Not a cicada to be seen. As soon as you get to the edges of the neighborhood - particularly the south- and west-facing sections - you begin seeing them.

Pretty obvious that the shaded forest floor being much cooler than the surrounding lawns had resulted in there being a layer emergence there. I’m expecting that the upcoming warmth will result in an explosion of hatching throughout the woods by the beginning of next week.

[mappy]

still nothing. 

[H2O]

22 minutes ago, mappy said:

still nothing. 

You should come down to the tropics and see them.  Back fence was littered with them yesterday

[George BM]

2 hours ago, RDM said:

Interesting. We're not far from each other and each trunk of our maple trees has hundreds or more shells on the trunk, not including just as many scattered on the ground at the base of each tree.  They onslaught really exploded starting last Wednesday.  They really congregate in numbers around maples, locust and other hardwoods compared to pines.  But even our white pines have a hundred or more on each trunk.  The birds are dive bombing the clusters on the ground.  Some appear so gorged it's hard for them to lift off again.  

Reading this sentence makes me picture a fully loaded C-5A/B Galaxy take off w/ the TF-39 engines screeching and screaming bloody murder lugging the heavy bird off of the ground.

[BlizzardNole]

12 hours ago, Kay said:

Still nothing here but was in College Park/Hyattsville yesterday and it was #happening.

Yup was moving our student out of her UMD dorm yesterday and saw quite a few on sidewalks.  None here in Germantown yet.

 

[Stormfly]

3 hours ago, mappy said:

still nothing. 

Look around the base of oaks and maples.  This weekend I've found lots of bores, kind of spooky looking!

[mappy]

26 minutes ago, Stormfly said:

Look around the base of oaks and maples.  This weekend I've found lots of bores, kind of spooky looking!

I go out every day and look, nothing. Hoping this weeks warmer weather will help up here, its been way too chilly for weeks.