I'll tell you what's bugging me

[panda55]

Locusts. That's right. The little buggers are back again. The weather has started to heat up a little and the plague has started again.

I didn't count them but I estimate around ten million flew / hopped / muched their way through my yard today, and I am not exaggerating.

 

[tiltjlp]

Now if those are what we call 17 year locusts, I sympathize with you. I think I missed the latest invasion last summer, since I hadn't moved back here to Cincinnati yet. But my ears ring all the time, and I blame it on those noisy buggers, having invaded a lot more than once every 17 years. I think they work in shifts, and actually return every 5 or 6 years. I feel sorry for you, but I'm glad it's you and not me who is suffering.

John

 

[PacDude]

I don't know why people call Secadas locusts.... Locusts are grasshoppers. Secadas are a soft-shell-crab with wings! Good eats!

 

[tiltjlp]

Well Dude, I've never tasted a locust, grasshopper, or a cicada, which is defined by my Word Web program as follows: Stout-bodied insect with large membranous wings; male has drum-like organs for producing a high-pitched drone. So while they may be a menu delight, it doesn't sound as if they are flying crabs. Maybe your information is a bit waterlogged.

John ldman

 

[PacDude]

Flying crabs as in that's what they taste like, not what they are. :D

Not that I've tried one, but a friend of mine swears they taste exactly like soft-shell crab. Frankly, though they never really showed up in NE Ohio. My grandparents live further south and they got their batch about 4-5 years ago, not this past year. They were everywhere down there back then. They'd land right in you hand. I hear a lot of cats got sick GORGING themselves on those things. They're ugly buggers, though and their shells are wicked looking when they shed.

 

[tiltjlp]

Have you been drinking Sterno again SmurfDude? Anyway, whenever we have our next 17-year cicada invasion, I'll send you as many as you want, or if I'n feeling brave, I'll invite you down here to experience it first hand.

John

 

[panda55]

These beasties are locusts/grasshoppers. Today was even worse than yesterday. Almost twice as many.

My lawn was 60/40 to look at. 40% locusts 60% grass. All they do all day is eat, shag, fly around bumping into things, oh and shag. (Maybe that's heaven for some).

I might get a close up of some tomorrow. Trouble is if you get within 3 feet of them they all fly up in one big cloud.

 

[panda55]

As for cicadas we get those every summer. Some towns are worse than others. It gets a little hot here for them but in Orange (a town 120klms east of here) they have a much cooler climate being at a higher altitude.

The singing of the cicadas is deafening. My mum reckons her tinitis is not dissimilar in sound, only a lot quieter.

I had a pet cicada when I was a kid. I called him Irving. I carried him around in my shirt pocket - even when we went shopping down the street. Man I used to get some weird looks.

I still get the weird looks. Maybe it wasn't Irving they were staring at.

 

[tiltjlp]

Ok, what you call locusts I/we call grashoppers. What you call cicadas we call cicadas aor 17 year locusts. And if we had flying crabs around here we'd probably call them flying crabs.

John

 

[PacDude]

Maybe I was just getting ready for Half-Life 2.