They're Coming! The 17 Year Cicada!!! HELP!!! (possible dial-up blabla)

[orleans]

i don't know what the hell i'm going to do. they drove me crazy during the last go-around and now they are on their way back.



articles have been saying they "emerge" in late may but they may be out and about sooner if the ground hits a balmy 64 degrees

if i could take the summer off and hide i would do it.

maybe if i made a shirt that said: I SURVIVED THE 2007 17-YEAR CICADA INVASION i'd get in a positive frame of mind--as it is now...oh god....

[orleans]

1. .

[mopinko]

2. just remember-

they are also driving many, many republicans crazy as well.

[orleans]

3. well...at least that! (some of my neighbors for example!!)

:rofl:

[MikeH]

4. Apparently I missed previous cicada invasions in Illinois

If this present invasion is in 2007, then previous invasions would have been in 1956, 1973, and 1990.

I had moved to Illinois a couple of years after 1956, and had moved from Illinois a few years before 1973.

[orleans]

5. well, you're really in for a treat! n/t

[MikeH]

6. No, I am not presently living in Illinois

[orleans]

7. ah....LUCKY!! n/t

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

8. If I remember rightly in 1990 they didn't "come out" until the first

week of June. Mr. Wonderful and I had friends from Ireland here on vacation and they were totally freaked out when the cicadas descended.

I remember one Sunday in particular, we were out at Gaelic Park in Oak Forest and they wouldn't even sit outside to watch the Gaelic football and hurling because "them fecking things" were everywhere.

I just wonder if all the housing developments that have sprouted up in the past 17 years won't cut back on how many arrive this year.

[Paulie]

9. I was digging in my yard

About 6 inches down, there they are, sitting in their tunnels waiting to party.

:)

A million per acre... and I have 400 acres of forest preserve next to me. Going to buy earplugs. :D

[murielm99]

10. The last time around,

my cat liked to eat them. She is no longer with us. I wonder if my current cat will like them.

[RaRa]

11. My father in law was digging for his garden

in our backyard (which is almost 2 acres) and didn't see anything. We're in Kane county. Any luck they'll miss us?

[Paulie]

12. They need trees to lay eggs

So dig around them. Pretty much anywhere I dig a hole, I find them but they aren't ready yet. But it's almost time. :) :) :)

[orleans]

13. ewww.....they're here. not en mass but they will be

here's a pic entitled: Your Big Fat Cicada Wedding
http://www.cicadamania.com/wedding.html

[DollyM]

14. I havent' seen a one . . .

I am in southern Illinois and haven't seen a one . . . Maybe they will stay up north!:)

[greatauntoftriplets]

15. I heard bunches yesterday ....

driving in suburban Chicago on a road with big cemeteries on both sides. What a racket they make.

[rosesaylavee]

16. Still waiting for them here in Kane ...

I like them though and think they are quite beautiful.

If they are anywhere in my area, I have missed them so far. I hear buzzing in the trees tonight as the sun sets but I think those are tree frogs.

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

17. I found a dead cicada in my car this afternoon, while I was

out running errands. The dumb thing must've hit the car and fell on the passenger side floor.

We have plenty of them here in the SW burbs. Palos Hills, Palos Hts, Oak Forest is full of them and their very noisy as well. Haven't heard too many of them here in Oak Lawn though, but in certain areas they're there.

[greatauntoftriplets]

18. My sister had a dead cicada in her car on Thursday....

which is rather surprising since she never drives with windows open. I do, unless it is cold or oppressively hot.

I haven't heard a single one where I live, but if I drive past all the cemeteries on the south part of town (Roosevelt to Cermak and just east of the Des Plaines River), there are TONS of them. I hear lots in River Forest and none in Oak Park.

Also, none where I work in Skokie. Thursday, a large group from work went to Hackney's on Harms in Glenview for lunch and sat outdoors; the place was alive with cicadas. We kept knocking them off each other. Yuk. Nevertheless, it was a fun lunch.

[Bjornsdotter]

19. Not a one here

...northern McHenry county, all's quiet.

Cheers

[JoDog]

22. Check again

Friday evening, I went out to dinner with two friends, a husband and wife. The lady has been sick with pneumonia and hasn't been out for weeks. I had a lot of car trouble, and we ended up broke down on the side of Ridge Road, between Wonder Lake and Bull Valley. We rolled down the windows and waited for the rescue vehicle.

The sound of the cicadias filled the air. "What's that noise?" my sick friend asked. "Those are the cicadias," her husband said. "Oh! I thought I missed them! Are there any near the car?" she asked as she leaned out the window (her eyesight isn't too good right now). We pointed out one that was crawling on a branch near the side of the road. She was entralled. "They're wonderful. It looks just like Mothra!"

But we all agree, if those tiny Japanese women show, we're out of here!

[Bjornsdotter]

34. Nope

We are free and clear here in Johnsburg. Haven't heard any in McHenry or north Crystal Lake, we are all hoping that it stays that way.

Cheers

[Norquist Nemesis]

20. All quiet here in DuPage a bit west of Rt 59 along Ogden

:shrug:

We've driven past some woody areas, but nuthin'! Very strange, IMO. I recall the cicadas being heard pretty much everywhere. Some areas were louder than others, but they still seemed to be anywhere and everywhere. They're just...missing. (Kinda like the honeybees, maybe?)

[orleans]

23. they aren't in naperville either--at least where i've been

in the downtown area and by ogden

lisle? not really (maybe by the arboretum, but not around 55th/maple/chicago ave.) the sound disappears when you cross 355 from downers grove and go into lisle. i guess they don't know how to navigate the tollway yet.

wheaton has a bit of them, not bad. downers grove is terrible. clarendon hills is bad. lagrange bad, glen ellyn as horrible as downers grove. lemont is bad.

they're flying a lot today in downers & glen ellyn

i can't believe there aren't any in lisle and naperville. what's up with that?

[Norquist Nemesis]

26. Finally! We finally have ONE!

That's it! One.

I dunno what's up with it. It's not like the area is swathed in open space and trios of seedlings. I don't even hear them around the forest preserves. :shrug:

[rosesaylavee]

29. Naperville and Lisle have had a lot of development...

may be that displaced them?

[Norquist Nemesis]

30. That doesn't explain them being absent in forest preserves. n/t

[rosesaylavee]

31. Just thought of something else...

Remember how they sprayed for that tree beetle a couple of years ago? Perhaps that spraying did something to the cicadas too.

[Norquist Nemesis]

32. That's more what I'm inclined to think

You're right about the development rate...17 years ago Naperville was really booming. We moved here in '95, and within about a year I was working at the Chamber. IIRC, the rate they were going predicted complete build-out within 7-10 years.

BUT, they've been very careful to ensure space for parks/recreation is protected. And the River Walk is "the Crown Jewel". The Forest Preserve is politically powerful (typical DuPage GOBNers). Wouldn't surprise me if the cicadas were even considered.

[rosesaylavee]

33. Ha...

I remember some friends, newly wed, moving down there from Elgin in about 1985 and we thought 'what a tiny town for them to move to' and assumed that it must just be cheaper to buy down there as opposed to Elgin. Not sure what the population was then - but the growth of 100,000 more bodies happened a short time later.

[dogfacedboy]

21. I'm in Elgin, and have not heard or seen the cicadas.

In contrast, I went down to the Sox game this past Thursday night, and as I travelled through the city, the roar of the cicadas was deafening. I also recently saw a photograph from the Brookfield area that showed a mound of cicada shells around the trunk of a tree that looked like someone used the shells as mulch.

[Cadfael]

24. Finally showed up here in numbers yesterday

We live in Wheaton, and for the past week or two there have been a couple of cicadas in our back yard...sounded pitiful, just the two of them - like weed whackers that couldn't get started. Yesterday at around noon there were suddenly appreciable numbers of them, and you can see them flying between the trees and a couple crawling on the ground (scared the hell out of my 100 pound dog). I'm glad they're here...it's cool every seventeen years, wouldn't want it every year though.

[mopinko]

25. none in rogers park, but was in the south burbs last week

went down to flossmore. they were out down there.

[City Lights]

27. I was in Lake Bluff/Lake Forest last weekend, and they were everywhere.

One landed on my arm; two on my husband's back. I got the willies when one of them crawled up onto his neck. None in the Waukegan area though. I'm surprised that the forest preserves around me don't have any.

[greatauntoftriplets]

28. Yesterday, I was sitting in traffic at the intersection of North and First Avenues....

It is Melrose Park, but the Des Plaines River flows just east of First and there are woods on the banks of it. The din!!! Same thing driving through River Forest on Thatcher Road.

I was delighted to get back to Forest Park where I live, and which the cicadas seem to avoid.

[DollyM]

35. our own Cicadas in southern Illinois

I was bracing for the 17 year cicada's in southern Illinois when I learned that we actually have 13 year cicadas down here so we shouldn't be bothered by the 17 year ones. The Japenese beetles have arrived in southern Illinois though and are munching their way through vines and rose bushes. They do not like Magnolia or Redbud trees though, which we have so we are safe there. My rose bushes took the hit last year and never recovered so I may not plant anymore of them. I wonder, do the cicada's like Japanese beetles for lunch?

[Bjornsdotter]

36. Omg yes

....the Japanese Beetles have arrived. I hate those little #$%^!

I went out and sprayed my roses with soapy water to kill the little pests, but I'll be fighting them for weeks now.

I would have preferred the cicadas.

Cheers