Meet Brood X

 

The 17-year periodical cicadas we were expecting are here. I saw lots of them this week in Central New Jersey at Sourland Mountain, Skillman, and all over Princeton. If you'd like to see them, head to any park in those areas. Or maybe visit Grovers Mill in West Windsor Township. (The town in which the imaginary alien invasion was set in the War of the Worlds.) Click to enlarge.

After spending 17 years underground in dark quiet, the cicadas have these few weeks in the sun to sing, and fly, and mate. I am thrilled to witness the spectacle.

You hear them before you see them. At first they sound like the familiar cicadas of August, but as you get close, they get loud, really loud, because there are so many of them. At full volume the high whirring song makes me think of spaceships landing.

For South Jersey people who would like to search for Brood X locally, they were reported during the last emergence in 2004 in Stockton, Marlton, and Browns Mills. 

Here's to Brood X. See you in 2038.