Backyard Look, Part 2

This is Part 2 of some things I saw in our backyard. Part 1 was about plants, and Part 2 is about things with multiple legs.

Every few years, after spending years underground, a major emergence of cicadas occurs somewhere. I have experienced these hordes of cicadas, and they are deafening, among other things. These cicada appearances get a lot of publicity.

However, there never seems to be a mention of the yearly cicadas like we have. And, quite frankly, I'm getting irritated with them. Their song is loud and annoying. I know the birds are still around, but I can't hear them over the cicadas. 

Complaining is done, so here is the rest of the story. Cicadas don't cause major plant damage and serve as food for many birds I struggle to hear. (I admit all of this grudgingly, because I'm still annoyed, so maybe I'm not done complaining. 😀)

Anyway, now for a few pictures of some more things in my backyard. 

A cicada hole that was made so it could emerge from the ground. It's about the diameter of a pencil.

Molted cicada exoskeletons. This happens as the nymphs change into adults.

Adult Linne's cicada. These are native to the eastern US and emerge every year.

Moving on to other insects, this caterpillar was still wiggling, but the ants were able to drag it across the driveway.

We've seen a few swallowtails on the butterfly bush, and yesterday I saw a monarch. However, not as many butterflies visit as I had hoped. This volunteer plant came from Aunt Martha's yard. I was excited to plant it because her bush was usually covered with butterflies. Ours has never looked like that.

A yellow garden spider has taken up residence in one of our bushes. They are quite common, although I don't remember seeing one before. This is a female, and she is still constructing her web in this picture. Notice the characteristic zig-zag in the web.

Now see how much better the zig-zag has developed. If you look very carefully, you will see little dots on the web. Those are egg sacks. The male spider builds a small web in the area of the female's and, after fertilizing her eggs, he dies. The yellow garden spider usually stays in place for the entire summer. This one has been here for about a week and a half. I hope it stays for the rest of the summer.

Transverse banded drone fly. These flies like nectar, much like the bees they are mimicking.

These surprise lilies don't have a bug on them for you to see. I forgot to include them in Part 1, so I'm including them here because they will be gone before I do my next backyard post. 

Until next time...

Cicadas

The cicadas are 1.5"-2" long and have distinctive red eyes.

 I don't know about the rest of the country, but we've been talking about cicadas here in the east for several months now. May saw the emergence of Brood X cicadas that have been biding their time underground for the last 17 years. There are over 3000 species of cicadas around the world, but only 7 of these are periodic cicadas, most emerging after 13 or 17 years underground. They appear for a couple of months in great numbers, mate, lay eggs, and the larvae burrow back underground for a very slow development to the next stage. They have no defense mechanism, so the large numbers assure their continuance. 

Holes where they emerged from the ground. I was at a picnic recently where a 3 year old was entertained by stuffing cicadas and their shells back into the holes. Her younger brother, spent a fair amount of time just walking around and poking his finger in the holes.

And what is it like when they are out and about? First, the sounds that the males make for mating purposes are deafening. The noise can be as loud as 100 decibels, which is equivalent to a low flying plane or a lawn mower starting. The din makes conversations outside difficult and causes ringing in the ears. However, luckily, they usually quiet down at night or on a cool day. They can be everywhere--on the ground, on the fence, up your pants leg, on a tree, down your shirt. The good news is that they don't bite or sting and only do minor damage to trees when the females lay their eggs under the bark of small branches or twigs. However, they have been known to kill a small tree.

The larva emerge from the ground and molt to expose wings.

And while they are all over the area in Mid Atlantic and up the East Coast, they are not ubiquitous. We have not seen any at our house unless you count the wings we find in our yard--presumably carried there by birds. However, a few miles away at Aunt Martha's house, they are out in full force and they have totally surrounded Wally's apartment.

While I don't have cicadas at my house this year, I have shells everywhere from an earlier invasion. It happened before we moved in and I'm not sure when that was. Notice the strong front digging claws.

The cicada invasion is dying down and they should be pretty much gone in a few weeks. Wally commented a couple of days ago, that the noise had died down enough that he could hear birds again. Soon restaurants will stop featuring them on their menus, I guess. By the way, I'm told that you shouldn't eat them if you're allergic to shell fish and they taste like shrimp. I wouldn't know and I don't plan to find out. :)

Birthdays, Veggies, and Cicadas

or Three Days Last Week

Day 3

Theo celebrated his birthday. After the Carnivores ate a birthday meal consisting of a lot of meat, we all went on a hike. Theo went with a full pack because he is training to go backpacking again.

We saw deer. I like seeing deer in the woods better than by my front door.

Even though wild rose can completely take over an area, it was pretty to see as we hiked along.

The trail went through some low areas where we saw a lot of skunk cabbage and Jack-in-the-Pulpits. This one was about 2 feet tall--much taller than the ones in my backyard.

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Day 2

The day before Theo's birthday, Uncle Billy and Aunt Martha invited us over to share in some of their harvest. Their shared bounty was served with Theo's birthday meal (where we actually had more than meat. I needed something to fill up on.)  :)

Most of Uncle Billy's asparagus is gone, but we were still able to get enough for a meal.

Aunt Martha shared some of her collards with us. I cooked them in the slow cooker with sausage. 

We have been eating the broccoli in salads.

The cauliflower wasn't quite ready to harvest, but I just had to take a picture of this beautiful head.

While Aunt Martha and I were in the greens patch, Ward was picking strawberries. There's nothing like a sweet berry straight from the vine. And we all had some straight from the vine.

Uncle Billy has grown the biggest radishes I have ever seen. Notice the quarter for scale. Instead of eating the whole radish like I'm used to, we ate slices from them. Per Lili's example we cooked the radish greens with the collards.

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Day 1

The day before our harvesting, Aunt Martha and I were in cicada country where we were visiting my mother. In some areas they were so loud, they literally hurt my ears.

The noise comes from the males trying to attract a female. I don't know if it's true, but I read that they may be attracted to you if you are running a lawn mower because they think that it's another cicada. That's how loud they can be. I still find them fascinating. but I will leave it to someone else who is actually in the middle of this hatch to tell you more about them.

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So there you have it. Three days last week.