Tuesday, June 26, 2012

cicadas early



Myth Number 9. Climate change is not really happening. 

According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, Dog Days are the 40 days beginning July 3 and ending August 11. So, like everything else this year, the Dog Days clcadas are two to three weeks early.

The buzzing outside my house has been raucous for over a week. The two species I've been hearing with the same intensity they normally save until mid-July are the scissor-grinder (Tibicen pruinosa) and swamp cicada (Tibicen chloromera).


But here is a more poetic description of a cicada's song, penned by Peter Matthiessen.

"Now the air is struck by the shrill of a single cicada, brilliant, eerie, a sound as fierce as a sword blade shrieking on a lathe, yet subtle, bell-like, with a ring that causes the spider webs to shimmer in the sunlight. I stand transfixed by this unearthly sound that radiates from all the world at once." 



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