I seem to like all the animals that most people hate. (Well, possum & cicada anyway.) I was in the yard this morning & heard this guy buzzing around clumsily, so I picked him up to get a better look. How can you not love a bug with a big triangular head—like a praying mantis meets an alien—with large eyes on opposite sides, with mouthparts that must have inspired those old-timey microphones, and wings big enough to allow this awkward beast to fly?
Upon closer inspection, this guy was clumsy because his wings had been ripped to shreds... and he was missing the lower half of his thorax! His body was literally a gaping hole, yet he was still alive! I set him down gently in the hostas.
And noticed that one of his buddies had been there:
The sun was pretty streaming through the willows:
And my plants are looking good despite my gross neglect:
Something seemed to be going on in the birdbath. Are those bubbles just algae... or eggs?
Just as long as they aren't mosquito eggs. I already have eleventeen billion mosquitos in my backyard. We grow 'em big & mean here in Kansas.
While I generally don't care to get up close and personal with live cicadas, I do love their "song." The sound of cicadas is, to this midwest-born-and-bred girl, THE sound of summer. Also, when we were little, my sister and I used to go around and pick their shells off the trees in our backyard. It was gross but oddly satisfying to pluck those little skeletons from the bark.
ReplyDeleteYou should hear 'em in Japan in August/September. In the countryside they're so loud that you practically can't hear anyone talk when you're outside!
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