Pandemic
With COVID-19, this was the first nation-wide lockdown in my lifetime I’ve witnessed. I guess the feel must be same for many many more people across the globe.
It was almost the same time, a year ago, when this lockdown first struck.
It being the first time, I wasn’t then really prepared on how to handle it. With everything literally shut down, there was nothing to do than sit where you are. But personally, it wasn’t that difficult. That’s because I’m not much fond of moving around frequent.
But still, it was quite shocking because literally, all the resources around me, were shunted.
Tabebuia
At my home, I have a Tabebuia tree, that I planted myself 2 years ago, in 2019. April 2020 is special because that was the first year I witnessed my Tabebuia tree blossom. And April, this year has been equally delightful, as they’ve blossomed again, in higher numbers.
But this post is about Cicada. The only reason I mention Tabebuia here is because the blossoming of Tabebuia and the surfacing of Cicada happened at the same time, then (2020) and now (2021).
Cicada
So, the same time, April last year, I first noticed these scary looking insects. You can see the images I took, below. But to describe them; they look just like house flies. But imagine the fly 50 times the size. Yes, the insect roughly is around 2 inch in length and 1 inch in width. The first time I noticed them, I was worried. It felt like dooms day for a second. You know, with pandemic, global standstill, and then such a big giant fly.
Later, I did some search on it and came to know of some very interesting things about this wonderful insect. For example, “One genus, the periodical cicadas spend most of their lives as underground nymphs, emerging only after 13 or 17 years.”
But, as I understand, the species that visits me is the annual cicada, “The annual cicadas are species that emerge every year. Though these cicadas have lifecycles that can vary from one to nine or more years as underground larvae, their emergence above ground as adults is not synchronized, so some members of each species appear every year”
These magnificient creatures come in clusters of 20-30 on the trees in front of my home. And, at timed hours of the day, depending on the weather, they start buzzing. And that can be quite loud at times.
They have visited this year too. And I’ve ensured to take more pictures of them. And it seems they’re socializing better because apart from the trees, they also occassionally sit on the ceiling of the front balcony.
It doesn’t look like the pictures are able to give the right perspective of how big these insects really are. Maybe if I can get a shot where I could have it next to any object, that’d give a better prespective. Until then…
… Luckily, in my archive, I did have some pictures from last year.
For the record, this one was not dead. It was just smart enough to pretend dead when I curiously poked it
