Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Clicking with Dog Day Cicadas


Seems like some of my best nature encounters happen in the early morning when I'm out walking the dog. This morning was no different; the dog placed her nose upon a large, live, cicada resting in the grass at the park. The cicada clicked, my dog sneezed, and I saw my chance to grab it and bring it home for some up close loud science.

The thing clicked and clicked over and over again as we ran home. I put it into our Big Bad Booming Bugs jar, so we could all take a close look. It peered out at us and waited. The clicking stopped. No one had the guts to put the head phones on... too afraid if it clicked we'd go deaf. Those things make some of the loudest sounds in nature.


The insect books came out and my kids hooted with laughter when I read that these bugs are called Dog Day Cicadas, due to the fact that they peak at this time of year. Found by a dog, on a dog day of summer....The dog days of summer have nothing to do with dogs or cicadas actually; the name comes from connections with astrology and the dog star, Sirius. '


We saved it in the jar with some leaves until one our best friends came by to play. Once she'd had a look and we'd all marvelled at the monster bug's oddness, we took it out of the jar and held it up to the sun. Then the clicking really started. We screamed, the bug levitated off my hand and we watched it join the hundreds of other cicadas up, up in the trees already clicking away in the heat.

(Read more about cicadas here, in an old edition of the Silver Spring Voice.)

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