Song of the Treetops

  The Bayou is buzzing!  Literally.  While we normally have about ten thousand frogs of all types chirping, croaking and burping in the ponds and waters of the Bayou, itself, now we are being inundated by cicadas!  Both day and night are noisy!  It is fine by me as I love hearing the cacophony put up by critters.  Those sounds mean the area is free of intruders.  Have you ever noticed that the critters of an area are suspicious of any unusual presence so much to the fact that they immediately go into watch mode.  They will sit quietly watching...ever watching.  The only ones that fly into panic mode are the members of the (daytime) Critter Neighborhood Watch Clan.  Blue jays will scream their heads off if anything is deemed to be a threat.  My Bayou is highly protected in one way or another.

  Back to the cicadas, though.  Each morning, hundreds more of the critters can be seen trying to stiffen their wings on gate posts, trellises, tree trunks or my arm.  The other day, one lovely critter decided that I was a likely spot to hang while the wings strengthened to flight readiness.  I did not mind as the critter simply held on tight as I did my early morning chores.  Then, about ten minutes later, it took flight to the hickory tree where it will sing its lovely song.  

  This morning, cicadas seemed to be everywhere.  I had to be careful where I stepped and what I did lest I smashed one.  A lot of these cicadas are incredibly large!  They live most of their lives underground but will emerge, morph into flying insects and will live four to five weeks in the treetops. There, they sing their songs while seeking a mate.  The female lays her eggs in the oak trees and, after hatching, the larvae drop to the ground and start their tunneling.  Cicadas are truly amazing creatures!  How nice that they charm our area with their presence and their songs.

  

Southern Serenade

   It seems as if there is a big uproar about the emergence of millions of cicadas due this month around the nation.  So?  Is that a bad thing?  I hear everything from "They kill the trees." to "They invade my house." or even "They are too loud."  So?  First off, cicadas do not kill trees.  Granted the adult females do lay their eggs in trees but the larvae eventually fall to the ground and burrow under.  What they do to trees is sort of a natural pruning which is actually good for trees.  Secondly, the critters do not "invade" houses.  They may crawl up the side as a means to let their wings dry and then to allow them to take flight but they really do not want to be inside.  That would serve no purpose to them.  If any do get inside, they probably flew in when someone left a door open or, occasionally, one may hitch a ride on someone because they simply landed and did not get off in time.  Being inside is counterproductive to them as they are only seeking mates. So unless you have caged cicadas inside, no other one wishes to be there.  Good thing about cicadas, they do not bite nor sting!  In fact, the critters do not have a mouth to bite with, in the first place so before that gets started, we will put a nix on it.  In the unhappy (for them) event that one does find itself stranded inside your house, do it a favor and simply pick up the critter and gently put it back outside.  In return, I am sure it will be happy to sing a song just for you.

  As for being loud, yep!  They can be deafening!  Their calls are often compared to about a billion electric saws being used at the same time!  This amuses me as I would much rather hear the cicadas sing than saws running in the middle of the night.  True, the singing is loud at times but be thankful...you can hear!

  Speaking of cicadas and their loud calls, if you live in the south, that is pretty much a yearly occurrence and not this thirteen or seventeen year thing.  It happens EVERY SUMMER here and their calls are not looked upon as something bad.  We accept it.  We take pride in our lovely creatures.  We appreciate them.  Of course, our annual emergence does not compare to the prediction of billions but, hey, they are only temporary so give them a break.  They will be around for a few weeks then, poof!, they are gone!  They will be back underground and go unnoticed until the next go round.  Like I said, folks, instead of fretting and trying to kill the critters, be thankful you are around to witness such an event.

The Bottomless Pits!

  With every hike about the hillside, I seem to be finding more and more grey squirrels are moving in on us.  Since the property to our west has been clear cut, the animals there had no place to go...except here.  Now, I am overrun with every critter imaginable.  Most are skittish and are staying in the wooded area behind the house.  The squirrels, however, have decided that the yard is their preferred residence.  Perhaps since the family of bobcats, a dozen or so coyotes and just as many fox are in the back, the squirrels are staying in the front.  To be honest, those predators need to thin the crop of squirrels a bit.  They are obliterating my garden!

  Most folks have a huge misconception about the squirrels.  It seems that a lot of people think that squirrels are cute and cuddly.  They have this idea that squirrels are a lot like house cats but nicer since "they only eat nuts and won't catch birds".  Who are you trying to kid?  Granted a squirrel is not going to catch a full grown bird, but, face it, squirrels are omnivorous. They can and will eat anything they can overpower...and that includes birds.  Usually, they stick to raiding nests and robbing the eggs but, occasionally, that nest may have tiny birds so that changes things.  Yep, the squirrel will still devour what is in the nest but their appetite changes from eggs to nestlings.  

  Today as I was wandering the gardens, I thought of how squirrels will just about eat anything.  With the onslaught of critters, I have lost peaches, plums and tomatoes to the rascals.  They are eating the green (unopened) pine cones and a few of the hickory nuts.  It was this afternoon that I saw a young squirrel eating yet a different kind of meal.  This rascal had caught and was devouring a cicada.  I don't trust the squirrels.  They eat just about anything so it is best to not leave anything that is valued out in the garden!  They will have it in a heartbeat!

Look Into My Eyes!

  "Look into my eyes!" said the critter!  "Look into all FIVE of my eyes!" he crooned!  He was just waiting to woo some gorgeous female by staring at her with his two large and three small red eyes.  Such a handsome fellow was he!  Although, by the looks of it, he was a tad clumsy on his feet.

  While out picking okra today, I spied a large male cicada squirming about on the ground. (The size of the abdomen told me this was a male.)  The poor thing was upside down and wiggling so much that the ants would be sure to find him if I did not help.  So, help I did.  I gently scooped up the cicada and placed him on the side of one of the planter boxes.  Bloop!  He fell to the ground.  Well, Little Guy, if you want my help, then you have to help yourself as well, I gently scooped him up again and replaced him on the box.  Bloop!  Down he went once again. Alrighty then! I picked the critter up for the third time.  With this, Son took notice of my predicament.  "Set him on the peach tree." he said from his position amidst the fig branches where he was harvesting what was left on the tree.  So, the bug went on the peach tree limb. Bloop!  What was wrong with this goofy thing?  Could he not cling to anything?  I snatched him from the ground and had a brilliant idea!  I will place him on the herb shelf!  This outdoor shelf should provide him with plenty of surface to gain control of his legs.  No soon had I let him sit, than, BLOOP!  He was on the ground once again.  By this time, Son had decided to join me in my quest to find a suitable perch for the bug. A twig braced between two herb pots on the shelf seemed to steady the critter. (Yes, I do go to this much trouble for an insect!) Now, I could get back to picking that okra!

  And, yes, Cicadas do indeed have five eyes.  There are the two most noticeable compound eyes on either side of the insect's head and, then in a triangle between those two, are three much smaller "simple" eyes. These five eyes give the critter a keen sense of vision.  When they crawl out from beneath the ground to molt into an adult, they have to crawl to the nearest vertical object.  This is usually done at night and the critter can spy a tree or post quite a distance from them.  The insect will make the trek to the post (tree, house, leg, whatever) and crawl up to shed. There it will cling as it allows its wings to harden.  The empty case stays put.  

  So even though this almost sounds like some zombie invasion with things crawling out from beneath the ground, it is more an emergence. These critters have been underfoot for quite some time just waiting for the right moment to crawl out, mate and start the whole process of life all over again. Look into his eyes!  You might be mesmerized by the entire life cycle of these critters.  There is much more to them than just their loud buzzing and beautiful eyes!

Can you hear me now?

I was just getting used to the late afternoon..early evening quiet from the froggy serenade when suddenly there was a new outburst of noise!  Starting just about five o'clock in the afternoon and running to just after dark, the cicadas let loose with their buzzing calls.  The males start their mating calls slowly at first with only one or two buzzing.  As the afternoon lapses into evening, more and more join in on the cacophony. The sound is almost deafening when there are twenty or thirty in the rose garden near the open windows.

Early this morning, I went out to see if I could find a newly emerged cicada.  Sunny, the pup, was with me and she actually found the newly emerged adult cicada.  As you most likely know, cicada nymphs spend most of their time beneath the ground.  They dig their way out and search for the nearest vertical thing they can find.  Up they climb and once they feel secure, their skin starts to split and the adult pushes its way out of the old nymph skins.  The dried skins can be found hanging on trees, bushes, the sides of the house and you if you stay in one place long enough!  The cicada doesn't care!  As long as there is something for it to cling to, it is happy!  Like I said, Sunny found the newly emerged cicada and I barely had enough time to grab her before she ate it!  I pulled her away and started my picture-taking project!  I wanted to get several closeups so I could view the eyes!  Did you know that cicadas have five eyes?? Yep!  There are the two large ones on either side of its head but if you look closely, there are three in a triangle shape in the middle of the head!  In the picture below, these eyes are glowing red from the flash!  This is one time that I was pleased that my subject had the dreaded "red-eye effect"!  This makes them easier to see!

The deafening "love" call of the cicada is made by two plates under the bottom of the critter.  There are two stiff  membranes called tymbals that when rubbed together create the loud noise we here coming from the treetops.  I did not wish to disturb the cicada as its wings were still a mite wet so you will just have to take my word about those tymbals!

On the nymph skin, it is easy to spot the long proboscis that the cicada uses to suck the juices from plants.  This is how they survive.  They do not bite like ants nor do they suck your blood like those vampire-like mosquitoes!  Cicadas do not have stingers like wasps..pretty much all they do is sing, eat plant goo and go about their cicada business.  I find them a bit fascinating.  Some evening, you should take the time to really study one and listen..listen to their calls!  Perhaps then you will come to know another small part of nature!  It is all about becoming aware of what is around you.  Things that most folks now-a-days pass by without ever seeing!

Happy Anniversary!

Today marks a milestone! It was one year ago today that I attempted to break into the blog world. I was nervous to say the least! I could not imagine anyone ever wanting to read anything that I had written..or read about anything that happened here on the Bayou. Face it..my little corner of the World is just not that exciting to the outside world. But my oldest son insisted that I try. He set up the blog, used a few of my pictures and sent me a password to get started. Eek! "Just write about anything that happens during your day." he said. "Just write it how it happens..in your own words..in your own style..and don't worry. People will read it." That scared me even more. Now here it is a year later and I have not missed a day of posting. I never knew that my Bayou had enough exciting events to ever fill a week much less a year. Then again, perhaps it is not the excitement but the peace of the Bayou that draws an audience. My Bayou is peaceful..something that I wish I could share with the World..with you.

At night recently, the peace and quiet has been disturbed a bit. My friendly mockingbird still serenades me from the rose arbor but now added to that is a loud buzzing. The cicadas (locusts as we call them!) are out and about big time! These fine critters let you know when they emerge from their subterranean life. I have the wonderful little exoskeletons all over the fences and arbors where they shed. The skin splits up the back and out crawls an incredibly weird-looking bug. One that is so strange that it is beautiful. These guys are said to crawl around underground for a number of years before making their way above ground. Once out, they molt and climb to the tree tops. Here the males form groups to "sing" away until some female enters the picture. Reproduction is the sole purpose of all of this confusion. The female will cut slits in tree branches to lay her eggs. She will lay up to six hundred eggs which will hatch in about eight weeks. The newborns will drop to the ground and dig in where they will stay for the next thirteen to seventeen years. And life goes on..the cycle begins again.

Their buzzing will last about two weeks or so, then all will be quiet. The above ground life of the locust will be over. I do not mind the buzzing of the locusts..the sound blends with the rest of the noisy nights on the Bayou. With the window open, I can hear all of the calls, chirps, whistles, grunts, growls and howls of the night. I try to identify each creature by its sound which is not always easy. Some sound so alike that at times I am confused to just what creature is prowling outside the window. In a way, all of this noise is part of the peacefulness of the Bayou.

Is it Circadian Rhythm or are they just tired?

Circadian Rhythm..a name given to the "internal clock" that regulates the biological processes in a living thing. Yep, it is a couple of big words that basically mean things just get tired and go to sleep. Nah..just teasing..I really do not know what it means. I was just reading where it is this Circadian Rhythm stuff that makes Mimosa leaves close up at night. I have no clue..I just always figured the tree knew it was nighttime and it needed to rest. I was thinking about this the other evening when out for my stroll. The mimosa leaves were starting their nightly folding and I wondered just what triggered this action. How did the tree know when to start..and how did it know when to wake up again without an alarm clock? After coming inside, I did a bit of research and got more confused than ever. It seems that this Circadian Rhythm thing causes changes to take place on a twenty-four hour cycle. Well, what if one day my Mimosa tree decides to sleep in and not unfold its leaves..would that throw off its whole "rhythm"? Would my tree then be out of cycle enough that it would not know to get up the next morning? And if I kept a Mimosa in a dark room for twenty-four hours, would it be so confused that its days and nights would be messed up making it sleep all day? Oh, the questions one encounters when walking in the garden! I knew that my Prayer Plant folds its leaves at night (hence the name..it appears to be saying its nightly prayers), but again, I had no clue why. Perhaps it is just a very pious plant, I do not know..or maybe its mother plant taught it well..or maybe it is Circadian Rhythm..who knows? I guess this is one that I will leave to the "experts"..my trees and plants just use commonsense and go to bed when it is dark!

While we are on the subject of things with rhythms, the cicadas are out in full force on the Bayou. Every night the trees are buzzing with their serenading and it really does not quieten down during the day. (No Circadian Rhythm with Cicadas! Ha..say that one aloud a few times!) Supposedly, we have a type of cicada called the Hieroglyphic Cicada here in the South. You could have fooled me on that one as we always called them "locusts" not to be confused with locusts that are basically grasshoppers. They are also called "jar flies" by my neighbor's children because they catch them and keep them in jars. Now, these are not to be confused with fireflies either just because they were caught and put in jars..they were not "jar flies" they were know as "lightning bugs". This is all quite simple when you look at it this way..cicadas are locusts and jar flies..locusts are grasshoppers.. and fire flies are lightning bugs not jar flies! (I am glad I could clarify that for you!)