By Jay jamison
This is the perfect time of the year, the glorious month of May. It’s not too hot, not too cold. Warm days and cool evenings. The flowers are blooming, the grass is green. Spring planting is just about finished so even farmers can catch a little break. May is the month that is largely compressed between two races, the Kentucky Derby and the Indianapolis 500. Thus, making this the perfect time to invite guests from out-of-town, even out-of-state, and show them the glories of west central Illinois at its finest.
Cue the double brood of cicadas, and the biting gnats and flies. My brother and sister-in-law are scheduled to arrive from Boston a few days after I file this column, just in time for the mass emergence of the ugliest insects ever conceived. Cicadas are harmless, since they don’t sting or bite, and they have only one object programmed into their little minds, and they want everyone to know about it. They give off a chirping, itching, scratching-like sound that is quite loud for an individual critter slightly smaller than your thumb. I suppose they’re forced to resort to noise in order to attract the opposite sex, since I doubt they could successfully lure a mate on looks alone. Magnify that not-so-lovely noise by millions of little crooners, all hoping for one last fling, and you have a cacophony of desperate insects that could put your neighbor’s leaf blower to shame. Eventually your neighbor will tire of leaf blowing, giving you a break, but cicadas will continue with their love calls all day long.
When they’ve mated, and the females have laid their eggs, they die off. The only thing possibly more revolting than live cicadas are millions of dead cicadas along with their pre-emergent shells. At first the emergence of cicada broods is a bonanza for many predators. But over time they become completely gorged, like little kids who’ve had too many cereal bowls of chocolate frosted sugar bombs.
The sound of cicadas may be annoying and the sight of them up close may be somewhat alarming, but that’s about it on the nuisance scale. It’s still possible to sit on your porch with a book or a laptop, enjoying a refreshing drink during the cicada ‘lovefest.’ However, another unwelcomed intruder takes up where cicadas leave off. Cicadas emerge from their 13 or 17 years underground, seeking other cicadas as mates whereas biting gnats are out looking for you because, unlike cicadas, you are on the menu. Like little vampires, some varieties of gnats need blood to survive as a species, and unfortunately human blood is often to their liking. How charming. I tried sitting on my front porch recently and was finally driven inside by these swarming pests. I could get some of the repellant that’s supposed to keep the gnats away, but then I would have to endure the awful smell.
This just goes to show that evaluating seasons has its many trade-offs. Winter can be bitterly cold, but there are no biting flies, ticks, stinging bugs and occasional plagues of cicadas in January. The continual change of seasons gives us reason to anticipate in January days without snow, and in May days without biting bugs.
