How do Cicadas Make That Loud Noise We’ve Been Hearing in Illinois?
More importantly though, when will the noise go away?
I live in a second-floor apartment. My bedroom window is almost eye level with the top of a large tree that sits outside our building. This means me and all the cicadas that live in that tree are basically sleeping right next to each other. Let me just say, I don't get much sleeping done with how LOUD they are.
I sleep with two fans already, and I'm not opposed to adding a third to drown out THIS.
Since I've spent far too many nights recently laying in bed listening to this sound. I finally got curious about what exactly the cicadas do to make this sound.
Is it a mating call? Is it to ward off predators? Is it just to keep me up every night?
Let's find out together, shall we? If you skip forward to about 1:45 in this video, you'll find the answer.
Here's a couple of my favorite comments from the video
- POV: this wasn’t recommended, you looked it up, you’re watching this because they’re coming in 2021.
- Imagine if a giant just reached into your house, took you in his hand, rubbed your belly and as you scream for help he's like "He just made a sound! That's so cool"
Honestly, all I have in my head right now is a mental image of all the cicadas in the tree just shimmying their shoulders making this sound.
You know, a little bit of this action?
Now that I know they're just sitting up in the tree movin' and groovin', they're slightly less annoying. Now I kind of just want to have a dance party with them.
The cicadas life span is around 4-6 weeks, so hopefully soon enough here they'll die off. Then we'll see them again in 17 years.
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