We’re now about 2 weeks into the Brood 2 Cicada hatch, which has been covering the Hudson Valley. It’s spottier than I imagined it would be, but our neighborhood is clearly good ground for Brood 2, as the Cicada chorus is now loud enough to be heard inside with the windows closed during the day now, though I’ve only seen a few of the beasts in the yard. I’ve gotten a little used to that other worldly sound, and will have to say I’ll miss it a little when this is over.

Radio Lab had great episode recently on the Cicada emergence, including a nice dissection of the sounds in the swarm. It turns out the chorus is really made of 3 different species with 3 different stages in their song. As this sun goes down this evening, and the cicadas start to quiet up, I can start to hear those pieces individually coming out. Like the tuning up phase in the orchestra, except in reverse.

And lastly, I learned today that modern noise cancelling in cell phones makes it basically impossible to record these sounds with a smart phone. Which is a shame. Otherwise I’d have uploaded our chorus to sound cloud.