17 year cicada invasion

(By the way that box was larger than necessary, just happened to be the smallest one I had -- I expect she'll make her next postal trip in a smaller box or in a shipping envelope.) (Cheaper.)

For the most part, that chorus has not yet kicked in. Cicadas begin the mating call -- made using structures in their abdomens called tymbals -- about five days after emerging from the ground.

It gave me an idea of what to expect in a few days.

From today's Tribune: On Monday, John Cooley estimated up to 100,000 surrounded a single tree at Bemis Woods Forest Preserve in Western Springs. Over the last two decades, Cooley has witnessed every periodical cicada emergence in the country -- three broods that appear every 13 years and a dozen that show up every 17. But the abundance he saw Monday was, he said, "as impressive as I've ever seen."

"This is pretty insanely dense," said Cooley, a University of Connecticut entomologist who is helping to map the Illinois emergence for National Geographic. "This is as dense as you'll ever see it. The local mass emergences have begun. There's no doubt."

By Monday, cicadas coated trees at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle and yards in Palos Heights, Oak Brook and Chicago's Beverly neighborhood, where sea gulls gorged themselves on an easy feast. They also had begun to emerge in suburbs north of the city, such as Deerfield and Winnetka, where the ground has been slower to warm up to about 64 degrees -- the trigger, scientists believe, that pushes cicadas above earth to begin a loud and lusty month.

So far, this is the subgroup of the brood that sings during the daytime. Apparently there are three subgroups. Each one preferring to mate at a different time of day. We haven't been getting the noise at night, but it's starts at first light -- 4:30ish this morning.

I'm actually hearing two different songs now. The constant chatter of the morning sex-maniacs and the more common whee-on of the afternoon group. I'm not sure how much longer we'll be able to sleep with the windows open but so far, so good.