Cincinnati Cicadas, Round 5 - Brood XIV

For those of you who are avoiding my blog because you are sicked out by the Cicada pictures, I apologize. I really do. Mrs. Shambles is - at the very least - irritated by my fascination for these 17-year insects. It's not looking likely, but if they mate and take to swarming, she'll be in the basement for the next three weeks.

So if you don't want to see pictures of bugs, please bear with me one last time. Yes, this is the last one. I promise. Unless they swarm. One guy I talked to yesterday said when they hit Cincinnati the last time (2004), you could drive down the street, not even very fast, and 50 could hit your windshield at once. Let's just say I filled my washer fluid reservoir today. Not really, but I should've.

So today's Cicada excitement comes in a couple forms. All of them photographic.

NOTE: All images used in my Cicada posts - good or bad - are all original photography and I did not watermark it because that's a pain in the ass. If you want to copy and post it yourself, I ask for two things: 1) Make a mention of my blog. A link would be nice. 2) Don't leech; that means: copy the image and save it yourself and upload it to your image hosting (I use Photobucket) or blog site itself.


Cicada husks in the shrubbery. Bastards!

So let's go through some life-cycle action:


What it looks like after emerging from the ground


At first I thought "Albino Cicada!" but that's the emergence.


Emergence with an early riser in the background.


Believe it or not, same cicada as in the previous 2 pictures about an hour and a half later.

So how do you feel about this series? Gross? Vile? Enlightening? You hated bugs already and now hate me? Let me know. My comment box is always opened and never monitored.

Still working on the noise...