One of My Favorite Songs

Oh I love this song!  I was down in Augusta, Ga for work last week and I heard the music of the 13 year Cicadas.  It's been a few years since I've heard the Cicada buzz.

There are different groups of Cicada, known as a brood, and not all of them are on a 13 year cycle.  That's explains why you can hear them more often then what their name indicates.  These insects can populate up to one million per acre!  They have been hiding under ground sucking out the juices of tree roots for the past 13 years and now their ready to make some babies.  They'll be around for about a month before they have all mated and died.  They haven't come up around my house yet, a few hours North of Augusta, but a map of their range says they can still populate this area.

As I drove through the forested area near Augusta, Ga I turned off the radio and rolled down the windows to listen to them.  The constant buzz is certainly loud enough to hear without putting the windows down, but I wanted to really enjoy them while I could.   With the air rushing in, I listened to the song and looked at the trees surrounding the road.  Cicadas were flying all around and a good many of them were colliding with my car.  They have no natural defense against predators like birds and cars except for their massive numbers.  There is just no way the birds can eat them all fast enough.

There is something really amazing about the song of the Cicada army.    This really is one of my favorite nature songs during the summer.  But with millions of Cicadas flying through the air, maybe I shouldn't have rolled the windows down.