I’m happy to announce that we received our first Australian cicada photos of this season!!! The photos were taken by Kevin Lee, Australia’s biggest cicada maniac.
According to Kevin:
This is the season for cicadas and this year they are more proliferating that usual. Some would call it a plague but I love it.
The birds (kookaburras and magpies) are having a feast!
Click the images for a larger (3072 x 2304) version:
Double Drummer (Thopha saccata):
rare green yellow Green Grocer (Cyclochila australasiae) and others:
rare green yellow Green Grocer:
Great shots and it would be useful to know the sites of capture please Kevin. The “yellow monday” shots above are really closer to the higher altitude (>500m) “Masked devil” colour morph (black “mask” between the eyes and black abdomen) of the Green Grocer. These orange/black variants emerged in huge numbers on the Blue Mountains west of Sydney from Woodford to Blackheath (500-1200m) from 1st October and are dwindling now due to some recent heavy thunderstorms over the past 2 weeks. Your photo is close to the morphs seen around Mt Tomah and Mt Victoria that don’t express the full orange (don’t ask me why as the altitude is only 100-200m difference).
Large emergences of Thopha saccata (“double drummer”) have occurred south of Sydney over the past 2 weeks.
Please keep up the great shots- I must send some as well.
David.
Comment by David E — November 22, 2007 @ 3:00 pm
that’s not a double drummer – this is a double drummer!
We must have bred ‘em bigger in Nowra in the 70′s, but seriously
what we called double drummers were twice that size
Comment by tug dumbly — December 13, 2008 @ 10:37 am