"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Critter Chronicles: The Nightly Chorus

If I were living in, say, the mountains of North Carolina, I would probably be talking about frogs. Whoever first started the rumor of the peace and quiet of the country was never in the Appalachians at night.

However, I live in Chicago, where, among other things, we have cicadas, the seventeen-year variety and the annual variety. I was stuck last evening, just before sunset, by how incredibly loud they can be. We have a lot of big old trees in my neighborhood, and once they've hatched in the spring and early summer and molted into their adult forms, the singing starts. They can be deafening.

Here's a short course on cicadas -- it's geared toward school kids, but Jeff the Nature Guy relates a couple of things I didn't know.


His cicadas are very quiet. If you're outside in my neighborhood in the evening in summer -- well, they're loud.

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