Preparing for An Invasion

God made the wild animals according to their kinds,

and the livestock according to their kinds,

and all the creatures that move along the ground

according to their kinds.

Genesis 1:25

As a kid growing up in the blistering heat of Phoenix, Arizona, I always looked forward to church camp in the summer, when we would spend a week up in Prescott - a little country town above the heat line.  The church conference owned a huge spread in the pines, with rustic cabins, fire pits, and evening temperatures that got downright cold.  Those yearly visits to Camp Yavapines were the highlight of my youth.  And my brightest memory of those times?  Believe it or not - cicadas!

When we arrived at camp and stepped out of the car, the first sound we heard were cicadas.  I distinctly remember laying in bed at night, listening to these creatures serenading the night sky.  Early morning walks included hunts for empty cicada shells.  If I relied only on my memory, I would say that these creatures were part of every year of my experience at camp.  Apparently, that was not the case, as cicadas bury themselves in the ground after birth, and rise in "broods" after an internally-determined length of time.  This spring, Brood II is going to climb from their 17-year underground hiatus, and try to fulfill a very short to-do list:  find a mate, make babies and die.  And wouldn't you know, I am in the direct path of the expected swarm.

This is going to be the largest cicada population to arise since Brood X surfaced in 2004.  These insects have been underground since 1996, and they are ready to party.  It is the male that does the singing, trying to attract the female for mating.  A single male cicada makes a kind of clicking sound.  However, you never hear just one cicada.  As the Washington Post reports: ...when hundreds of thousands of bugs click all at once, it creates an extraordinarily loud screech that travels in waves, day and night, sounding like crickets on steroids.  

That description doesn't quite jive with my memories of the creatures, but if entomologists are correct, I am going to have my memory refreshed in spades.