Feature story I wrote about cicadas

1. Sunday
7/6/1997
Edition: Home Final
Section: FEATURES - Accent & Arts
Page: 1J
THE MAGIC OF THE NIGHT-
BLOOMING CICADA
By Glenn Sheller
The Columbus Dispatch
Last summer, in my toddler's pre-"W" days, she dragged me outside every
morning to "dig 'orms." In the shade of two big weeping willows, we'd root in the
dirt to dig worms and centipedes and pillbox bugs to put in her bug jar.
Each day, the newly repopulated bug jar would end up on the coffee table, to the
dismay of my wife and the frustration of the cats, who would sniff and paw at the
menagerie inside.
It was on such a bug expedition one mid-July morning that the mystery of the
night-blooming cicada began to unfold.
"Zat?" said my daughter, pointing.
Several feet up the trunk of one of the willows clung the discarded exoskeleton of
a cicada nymph.
Everyone has seen these translucent dirty brown shells, with their big BB eyes and
large mantis-like front legs, a hollow replica of the former occupant.
They're quite hideous and irresistible to girls and boys of a certain age. My
daughter is no exception. Neither am I.
For at least 30 years I've been fascinated by these creatures and their mysterious

2. comings and goings.
I say mysterious because in all that time, I'd never seen a cicada actually emerging
from its shell. All I'd ever found was the shell itself, with the winged adult long
gone, hidden somewhere in the treetop canopy.
Getting a view of adult cicadas themselves was rare. As a boy I spent many an
hour clambering 40 or 50 feet up the big maples in the front yard of my home
trying to catch one of the noisy buggers.
All around me the males whiled away the hot afternoon making that raucous,
ratcheting mating call that is the sonic signature of late summer. But I could never
quite pinpoint the sound, and I never spotted one in all that green wilderness.
Now here I was, watching as my little girl began to appreciate the same mystery.
No sooner had she plucked the shell off the tree than we saw another. Then
another, and yet another. Then more on the twin willow a few feet away. The
willows were crawling with them. Or had been.
We collected them all and stuffed them in the bug jar.
We repeated this ritual for several mornings before the obvious dawned on me.
Each day we removed all the shells. Then each morning, we found more. But we
never caught anyone in the act. So when were the nymphs hatching?
Ding! At night, of course.
That night, sometime after midnight, I tiptoed down the long slope of the back
yard to the twin willows, the little boy in me bursting with anticipation, the
grownup reminding him soberly that there might be nothing there after all, so
don't get too hopeful.
I flipped on my flashlight, turned it on the first tree and the little boy inside
shouted "YES!" There it was, an adult cicada, clinging to the dusty shell it had just
escaped, its huge, delicately veined wings glinting wetly in the light.
Over there was another, and here, another. Higher up, there! And there! I found

3. four or five on each willow, some clinging to the trunks just a few feet from the
ground, others, way, way up, 12, 15 or 20 feet, all dangling from the discarded
shells that were anchored to the rough bark.
While some had wings that were almost dry and ready to fly, others had only just
emerged from their shells, their wings looking like milky stubs of wet tissue paper.
Over the next several hours as I periodically returned to check on their progress, I
watched as these wing buds unfolded and lengthened, growing transparent and
veined in a soft and iridescent minty blue-green - a miraculous nocturnal bloom, a
jewel of the night.
Choosing one whose wings felt dry and firm to the touch, I plucked it unresisting
from the tree and dropped it into the bug jar. A treasure for my daughter.
In the morning, we held the jar up close and marveled at his sheer size. We
studied his gossamer wings, his funny Edsel-like face and his huge unblinking red
eyes.
That afternoon, when we'd had our fill, we went outside and unscrewed the lid of
the jar. The bug's wings beat the air powerfully as soon as it sensed the opening
and it rocketed into the treetops to become as invisible as the rest of his noisy
fellows.
For my daughter and me that afternoon, the mystery of the cicada ended, but the
magic didn't.
And with cicada season upon us, it is about to begin again.