This seems to me to be a good year for the familiar buzzing sound of cicadas. I really enjoy that sound. After visiting relatives on the other side of the state, our last stop before home is usually the Forsyth DQ. When getting out of the car in the DQ parking lot two things say home -- the heat and the cicadas. It is nearly the same experience every summer. Thinking some of you former Miles City folks might live where there are no cicadas, I video taped the buzzing from my front porch. It is posted on the Miles City Flickr group and can be accessed by linking from the mc.com home page. Oh, I know I could embed it. I also have a longer clip of the cicada song on my personal Flickr site for those of you really into hearing the homey hum.

Honestly...


I hate these things.

Living here my whole life, I STILL get woken up by them daily. I honestly love winter for this reason, so they all die/go away.

Thanks Bart . . . that sound does take me home.

No cicadas to speak of here in my area of western Washington. Certain times of the year frogs croaking can make quite a racket at night. Oddly it seems like I've noticed the frogs more in mid-winter, say, if we have an unusually warm night.

They don't have them here either and they certainly are one of the sounds of "home".

Josh, you have to leave home for a time to be nostalgic for it.

We have cicadas out here, or at least something that sounds like them. They aren't nearly as loud as they are back home.

I not only miss the sound, but I also miss my kids "catching" the emerging larvae like I did when I was a kid. I also remember, one summer, my son and I were in the front yard when a cicada killer nabbed a cicada right out of the air in front of us. It was quite an insect-sized ruckus. Those cicada killers are a big nasty-looking wasp.
I also remember those smaller, darker cicadas one could catch up in the pine hills.

I'm with Josh...but I have to admit, I don't like hot weather, so the sound of those little "buggers" sounds hot, nasy and irritating to me. I am fascinated by how they can be buzzing away and all just STOP like a universal switch is thrown. i'll give 'em that...

Bob, we like(d) to collect the shells and then hang them off your clothes.

My wife was raised in non-cicada country and when she first moved to Miles she thought it was the power lines making the buzzing sound.

Interesting about liking or disliking the sound. I have a wind-up clock in my classroom that does the old tick-tock. Some kids love it and some hate it. Part of it has to do with the ability to filter out sounds, I think. Well, like them or leave them, I bet we don't have too much more of the cicada song -- couple of weeks.

Where I live in Houston, we have it all, cicadas, frogs and heat! The only thing I like is frogs, I could go the rest of my life and never hear a cicada again and be okay with it.

And as a bug, they are the biggest nastiest thing around. I would rather see a large wood roach than a cicada.

M T Zook,

Rats.

Okay, disregard the t-shirt and stuff that is in the mail. I signed you and Josh Rath up for the Cicada Lovers' Club -- the CLC.

Sorry about that. Well, at least I get to keep the giant cicada stuffed doll that came with the extra memberships.

Man, I had no idea there was such angst (is that the right word?) with cicadas.

Don't worry Bart, some of us agree with you! The buzzing of cicadas are a very fond, sound of summer, for me too. There are times that they can get crazy loud, but mostly just a pleasant drone in the background. The irony in this is that the other sound that means "summer" to me is zap, sizzle, zap of the bug light as it gives off it's soft, blue, deadly glow in the backyard! Ahhhh, summer.....

Well Bart, I was hoping for a lifetime pass to ice skating in Miles City. Sorry you wasted your time/money on the CLC.

I have hated the buzzing since I was a paper boy, long ago, walking the neighborhoods for hours every afternoon.

@Bob: I never saw the killer wasps in MC, but found one ravishing a cicada on a sidewalk path in a wooded area in Dallas. Pretty unforgettable. I don't know what makes certain sounds, local lore refers to cidadas, tree frogs, etc. In this wooded area and the wooded stream that runs through my workplace, it seems like there are always a chorus of sounds pulsating the air. Usually some bizarre bird calls as well. It's like being in a jungle movie.

Jim - That was the only one I ever saw in Miles City. I think they're common in the mid west.

Hmmm....I haven't lived in Miles City in the summer since 1984 or so.....and I have never missed the sound of cicadas once. You people are nuts.

Lovely song. I closed my eyes and imagined sitting on a bench outside of Eagles Manor, before my feet could touch the ground, while the ole folks fed the squirrels. . . Thank you, Mr.Freese.

Now, that's more like! You're welcome.

Hmmm....I haven't lived in Miles City in the summer since 1984 or so.....and I have never missed the sound of cicadas once. You people are nuts.

Seconded! Very few sounds more annoying than cicadas.

It is quite apparent that the old cliche serves again: different strokes for different folks.

The cat finds the cicadas rather fascinating. Shey'll drag one around and when it buzzes, she'll drop it and back away. If it gets quiet, she'll bat it with her paws and if it buzzes again, she'll jump back again. Then she'll pounce on it again and drag it off.
It's quite hilarious to watch.