Silly Saturday ...

... bug eyed!

We (I) had the most fantastic day which had us looking for (and finding) some Brood X (ten) Cicadas!  The Brood X (ten) cicadas are the 17 year cicada that only emerge every 17 years ... hence the name!

I've been wanting to go out looking for these cicadas since reading about them in the local newspapers ... and seeing some here on Blip.  I had recently uploaded an app that people can register their findings and I saw that there were some sightings down in Hellertown ... just south of us.  

So ... this afternoon we jumped in the car and headed south.  We really had no idea exactly where to go so we just drove.  Our first destination was the Hellertown reservoir as this is where the app showed a sighting. I know from past experience that there aren't any places to park at the reservoir but we made this our starting point.  I had my car window down as we were driving and when we got near the reservoir I heard them!!! What had to be millions of cicadas!  

Since there was no place to park and/or pull over near the reservoir I searched Google Maps for a potential park nearby.  About two miles away was a park called Alfred J. Fritchman Reservoir Park.  We had been here before so we were familiar with it.  

All along the way we continued to hear the cicadas so we were very optimistic.  Boy oh boy!  Was I ever so glad we went to this park!  As soon as we started walking the trails we saw cicadas everywhere!  Unfortunately, some of them (in fact most) were not alive.  But that is their life cycle.  They emerge from the ground, mate, lay eggs (if female) and then die.  We are nearing the end of this Brood X emergence so it's not surprising that most were not still alive.  

We did find a few ... including this one I'm holding on my finger.  You can tell this is a 17 year cicada by his/her red eyes.  The annual cicadas don't have the red eyes.  We also found a lot of their shell casings ... which I bought home for a future blip! Stay tuned ...