[QUOTE=Freddy the Pig]
But where oh where? Can someone give me a location in DuPage County where I’m guaranteed to find these buggers?
[/QUOTE]
Here is a map from the Tribune website, showing reported sightings.*
Still none in my neighborhood.
*The Chicago Tribune requires free registration, but I’m not sure if this map does.
Do they never venture into Chicago proper? Haven’t heard a single cicada singing yet.
I saw a piece in the Tribune where someone reported seeing zillions of them in a park in Riverside, but she said that at her home in Oak Park, she hadn’t seen any yet. Weird, because Riverside and Oak Park are maybe a 10 minute drive from each other, and both have lots of large trees. I have not seen any in the area myself.
I was at a party in Highland Park last weekend…the hosts were concerned that the cicadas would be a problem, but we only saw one dead one on the sidewalk, and none in their backyard whatsoever, despite their house being surrounded by old trees.
[QUOTE=HazelNutCoffee]
Do they never venture into Chicago proper? Haven’t heard a single cicada singing yet.
[/QUOTE]
I would expect you to see a ton in Hyde Park, with all the parks and large trees. I doubt that they would be squeamish about living in the city, especially in a neighborhood like that.
I used to live right by the Museum of Science and Industry…have you ever been to the Japanese garden in Jackson Park? It’s just to the south of the Museum. Even though you are right in an urban enclave, the garden is this little oasis of real nature. I was there once, and saw a rather large crane emerge from the vegetation on the side of the pond, and fly away! I would think that cicadas would be comfortable hanging around such an environment.
Still none up in my neck of Lake County. I think this is all a plot by the Chicago Botanic Gardens to get people to their cicadas exhibit. We tried to go on Memorial Day and there was about a mile backup on Lake Cook Road trying to get into the place.
[QUOTE=Freddy the Pig]
All right, where the heck are these things? In the last two nights I’ve tried the trees opposite the Glen Ellyn train station and the Meacham Grove Forest Preserve, and seen nothing. As in, Not One Bug. Where do you look for them? Are they on the grass, in the bushes, on tree trunks, or up in the branches?
[/QUOTE]
Get off the train in GE. Walk east to Park (1st street that crosses the tracks) If you haven’t seen a zillion of them within 2 blocks you ain’t looking. In fact, this morning I was noticing a mulberry tree on the east side of the street, 2 houses souty of Duane, that had a pile of carcasses under it that appeared to be a couple of inches deep.
The carcasses are on tree trunks, shrubs, hosta, blades of grass, telephone poles, street signs, etc. They DO NOT go in evergreens. If you look at the shrubs near eye level, in many of them you will see a red eyed bugger on nearly every leaf. I’ve noticed that they seem to especially like arrow-wood viburnums. If you look on the ground, you’ll see many MANY and smooshed ones. Look up and you’ll see them flying around the tree tops. They’re pretty hard to miss.
Man, I can’t believe I’m explaining this! Last night walking home down Park I had 3 of them fly into me and hang onto my clothes and hair. If you walk W off the train to Main, they are very heavy both N and S of the station.
Hell, come into my back yard. Last night there were two of the suckers sitting on my picnic table 2 feet from me as I read while the pork chops grilled. And another one was stumbling around just outside of the door on the deck - I needed to be sure not to step on it as I went in and out. Hell, I’ve got a couple of bushes that have branches lying down on the ground from the weight of the live and dead buggers.
Having said this - they ARE very localized. In Glen Ellyn south of Roosevelt there are few to none. And over the past couple of weeks I have golfed courses in Lombard, Glen Ellyn, West Chicago, and Batavia that have had none. Even in a heavily hit area, it will vary from block to block - even from tree to tree.
Oh my God. I never knew there was so much insect flesh in the world. They must have come up between Tuesday and Friday.
The thing is, you don’t see adults hopping around doing grasshopper things. Instead you see, in decreasing order of biomass,
(1) abandoned husks of larvae;
(2) dead larvae;
(3) pupating larvae;
(4) dead adults; and
(5) recently pupated adults, sitting moribund, waiting for their wings to dry. They’re ug-ly!!
Once they’re pupated and active, apparently, they climb into the high tree branches, and I hear them but I can’t see them.
Where the ground is bare, you see the holes where they clawed their way up. It looks like a platoon of Marines took target practice at the ground.
I was tempted to put a few in a jar, set them loose in my back yard, and see if I could grow my own crop for 2024. But, I probably won’t be living in my house in 2024, and whoever buys it might not appreciate the cacophony.
So I guess you realize now why I was incredulous that you would ask where to look for these things?
You can’t imagine how many times I laughed this morning thinking of this thread. I was walking the dogs, and doing some work in my yard. And these damn things kept flying into me. And they are so loud you would need to raise your voice to talk to someone standing right next to you.
Hey Pigman - do you live in GE?
Nope, Glendale Heights. Too much recent construction, however, to expect any action there.
The distribution can be pretty puzzling. I work weekends at Kline Creek Farm and we were expecting a million of them there, since there is some very old-growth forest where the land was never (we think) plowed. But there was only faint chirping, and the manager said he had seen two husks.
Even in Glen Ellyn, one bush would have a million and the next would be empty. I suppose it’s a function of where they eat–they live on sap for the 16 years and 9 months that they’re underground, and apparently only certain trees make the nut.
We just went for another walk through the Northfield woods. Many more cicadas today than a few days ago. At one point, we came across a group of maple trees. Wow. The ground cover was moving due to the thousands of cicadas at the base of the trees. The whole area sounded like a huge bowl of Rice Krispies. The new cicadas were streaming up the trees like little columns of troops. Very cool.
We also saw a bunch of deer who didn’t seem to horribly concerned with our presence there. I wonder if they are munching down cicadas like every other form of wildlife out there.
Ok - I live in Houston and we have cicadas EVERY YEAR. WTF? Are y’all’s different than ours? Why do we get them every year? Ours are green, if that matters.
(None yet, but they should show up very soon. It’s been a cool spring.)
[QUOTE=Dolores Reborn]
Ok - I live in Houston and we have cicadas EVERY YEAR. WTF? Are y’all’s different than ours? Why do we get them every year? Ours are green, if that matters.
(None yet, but they should show up very soon. It’s been a cool spring.)
[/QUOTE]
These cicadas are different. They are periodical cicadas. They’re black with red eyes. In the Chicago-land area, they have a mass emergence once every 17 years. This is one of those years; we won’t see them again until 2024.
Check out this vid
I went out today and it looks (or more appropriately, SOUNDS) like the little bastards have invaded Downers Grove in full force. My god, they were loud.
Scruloose: great vid!
[QUOTE=Scruloose]
We just went for another walk through the Northfield woods.
[/QUOTE]
I see you’re in the Glenview area. There’s a whole slew of them in the Kraft/Avon area at Golf Rd. and Waukegan. They’re reddish brown in color with intense red eyes.
[QUOTE=rowrrbazzle]
Scruloose: great vid!
[/QUOTE]
Yeah - awesome vid. I’m surprised no one posted that earlier! 
They are getting heavier every day. Yesterday I was pulling weeds and it was cloudy and drizzling. I noticed they were quieter than usual. Then the rain stopped and the minute the sun came out, the SOBs started screaming again.
They’re screwing like mad now. Several of the bugs that flew into me were - um - conjoined.
Have you seen one of these idiots that ended up on its back? I would not have imagined it woul be so difficult for a winged creature to turn itself over. And they don’t seem to direct their flight so much as blunder into things. Truly a sign of the evolutionary advantage of sheer numbers over intelligence.
What I find more amusing than the bugs’ stupidity, is the intelligence of the homeowners who wrap aluminum foil around their tree trunks to keep the bugs from crawling up their trees. Uh, there’s just this one minor flaw in that strategy …
Still no cicadas up by me in Lake County. However, the damn frogs are croaking at night in the pond behind my house, and they’re loud little buggers.