Won't See This Again 'til 2024

Saw several of these strange burrows ringed with cairns of mud balls, a good three inches high, this past summer. They are called "chimneys." Like nothing I'd seen before, but remarkable, very noticeable, and today I find out it's no wonder I hadn't seen them before or since, because they are the homes of the nymphs of the 13-year cicada, whose year it was in 2011. (In late May and June you couldn't take a step outdoors here without feeling them crunch beneath your feet.) Some people confuse these mounds with crayfish "chimneys," but these were located on a hill, under trees, far from any creek beds. When it rains, the cicada nymphs house-clean by pushing mud and mud balls up and out of their dwelling -- pretty good considering they haven't any arms -- and leave them right outside. Good housekeeping. Now I will know what these little mounds of mud balls are when I see them again in 2024.

Song of the Cicadas

The band you will shortly hear is called "The 13-Year Cicadas" and these cicadas singing their #1 hit will rock your world, make yo' liver quiver and yo' knees freeze! The video, taken on the Timberstone trail, lasts 35 seconds. Be there or be square. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k-dRyQJCBw

The 13-Year Cicadas Emerge

After 13 years underground, cicadas (genus "Magicicada"; top that!) emerge all brown and ugly, climb a leaf, molt off the brown shell and become, for a few weeks, glamorous winged reproducing adults. Their famous earth-rattling, nighttime choral song is the males' mating song. It happens to be the 13th year here in rugged rural Missouri. (Northern states have 17-year cicadas). But I didn't know that. I was cutting some purple irises for my table and saw bugs all over the iris leaves and said, "What's this, inch-long bugs hanging in pairs on my iris leaves? Eww!"

Once I saw them, I saw them everywhere! All doing the same. And I plucked up a brown one and saw it was just a translucent shell, still clinging to the leaf, but empty. And near every shell was a live cicada entirely new to the world, quietly drying off like a butterfly, and waiting a few days for its exoskeleton to harden. Then off to the party, which will last just a few weeks, until July. I ran for the camera to show you. Once in every 13 years!