{"id":7169,"date":"2017-07-09T08:28:40","date_gmt":"2017-07-09T15:28:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/?p=7169"},"modified":"2021-01-24T20:49:28","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T03:49:28","slug":"my-2017-brood-x-and-vi-experiences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/my-2017-brood-x-and-vi-experiences\/","title":{"rendered":"My 2017 Brood X and VI Experiences"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ll cut to the chase, in terms of Brood VI<\/a><\/strong>, I only experienced the emergence via my web browser. I planned on visiting North Carolina but rain and car troubles stood in my way. I did travel to Wisconsin to try to find legendary populations said to exist there, but I found no cicadas. I drove routes 90, 14, 12, 23, and roads in between, but I had no luck finding them. My investigation was by no means comprehensive, but I covered as much ground as I could in the two days I was there and found no periodical cicadas. <\/p>\n

Brood X stragglers<\/a><\/strong> are a different story. I missed seeing the massive Virginia\/Maryland area populations, but I was able to see cicadas in Princeton, and the significant emergence in the Dublin area of Ohio. <\/p>\n

Princeton, NJ<\/h3>\n

On May 20th I visited Princeton and found exuvia (shed skins\/”shells”) on a pole next to where I parked my car, which was very encouraging. I headed for the Princeton Battle Monument park, a place where I saw massive numbers of cicadas in 2004. There, in 2017, I found exuvia but no adults — from 5 to as many as 200 per tree (I counted what I could see). The park was overflowing with squirrels and birds that would love to eat cicadas — I have no doubt why no stragglers survived. Blackbirds paced the lawn five abreast, like a small army systematically hunting for insect prey. During a normal emergence periodical cicadas emerge in such great numbers that many are able to get past the armies of hungry birds and rodents (this is called predator satiation<\/a>). After visiting the park, I walked many side streets and found exuvia everywhere I went — not massive piles as we see during a normal, on-schedule emergence — but at least a few on every tree. <\/p>\n

I returned on May 27th and actually found adult cicadas in Princeton. I found dozens of Magicicada cassini and a few Magicicada septendecim. There were not enough adults to form viable choruses. I doubt a few mated. I heard a single Magicicada cassini court song, so all least they were trying.<\/p>\n

The most interesting cicada I saw was this Magicicada cassini with a mosaic pigment mutation, which caused the unusual orange marking on its abdomen. At first, I thought it was a Magicicada septendecim, but Chris Simon confirmed that it was not. <\/p>\n

\"Magicicada<\/p>\n

I also drove Rt 29 from Trenton to Frenchtown, across Rt 12 to Flemington, and down Rt 31 and heard no cicada populations. I visited Sourland Mountain. I visited many of the markers on Cicadas @ UCONN (formerly Magicicada.org)<\/a> but found no cicadas, and certainly no viable adult populations (no singing, not enough to perpetuate a population). <\/p>\n

North of Dublin, Ohio<\/h3>\n

On June 10th I made it to the suburbs north of Dublin, Ohio (itself north of Columbus). There I encountered a very active periodical cicada emergence. I mostly found Magicicada cassini, but I could hear Magicicada septendecim from time to time. I have little doubt that many cicadas mated and some of their progeny will survive to appear in another 14 or 17 years. <\/p>\n

\"North<\/p>\n