To your ears, is that a loud annoying buzz or a musical trill being heard on Nantucket? Naw, that's not electric hedge trimmers down the road but the rhythmic rubbing together of legs by nearby cicadas. Think sounds of crickets but raspier and less melodic. FWIW, the noise is a call by males to females up to a mile away. Dr. Sarah D. Oktay, former director of the UMass Boston's Nantucket Field Station, favorably considered cicadas among the many seasonal sounds of insects on Nantucket in her late summer 2015 column in Yesterday's Island. "When I reflect upon a quintessential summer, I think of June bugs, grasshoppers, butterflies, perhaps on more cynical days, deer flies, mosquitoes, wasps…back to good days…fireflies, moths, and as the dog days of summer come, the cicada," wrote Oktay.
Cicadas fascinate many and frighten others. Some of us might have stored away a childhood collection of their exoskeletons left clinging to trees by nymphs emerging as adults. A few adventurous readers might have tried them as exotic food delicacies. In considering images for this report, we chose the big-eyed beast enlarged, emerging from its shell, instead of roasted bugs on a stick. Take your pick.
They're here