Memories and a goodbye to periodical cicadas, freaks to bait, for another 17 years

Ed Potocki plucked a cicada off his chest and noticed white or blue eyes.

The 2024 emergence of the 17-year cicadas is ending. In its wake are a host of memories and peculiarities. This emergence received more buzz, probably because of the rare overlap with the emergence of 13-year cicadas downstate.

Let’s wrap the emergence beginning with Potocki, who emailed: ‘‘Being in the landscaping business, the cicadas have been a nuisance, flying all over me with the noisy machines. This one happened to land right on my chest, and I thought it might be different from the numerous ones that have been bugging me since they came out. I heard they’re one in a million. I’m going to play some lottery.’’

Blue-eyed cicadas are considered that rare, but how rare is tough to determine.

‘‘The blue- or ‘white’-eyed cicadas likely have some genetic mutation that is fairly rare,’’ emailed Derek Rosenberger, an associate professor for conservation and ecological health program at Wheaton College. ‘‘The number being quoted is one in a million, but I'm not sure the origin of that statistic. These cicadas also have different coloration on their wing veins, as well. There seems to be little known at this point about blue-eyed cicadas because they are so rare. However, that is about to change, thanks to social
media. A month ago, a young boy found one in Chicagoland and gave it to the Field Museum, which got a lot of publicity.’’

Rosenberger had his own encounters with blue-eyed cicadas — with an interesting twist.

‘‘While collecting 13-year cicadas for my own work a couple of weeks ago in the Decatur and Springfield area, I was lucky to find a blue-eyed cicada, too!’’ he emailed. ‘‘Interestingly, this would be a Megacicada tredecassini from Brood XIX, which is a different species than the 17-year Brood XIII Megacicada cassini blue-eyed cicadas found in the Chicago region. This suggests whatever that mutation is, it is found in closely related 17- and 13-year species, which is cool!’’

Things got so wacky with cicadas that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources sent a reminder in late June ‘‘that state law prohibits the capture and removal of animals, including insects, from state park properties.’’ That was in response to massive collecting reported at Big Foot Beach State Park near Lake Geneva.

The periodical cicadas interrupted usual animal behavior. Two readers in less than 24 hours mentioned the impact on bird feeders.

Keith Tovey emailed: ‘‘I know that the three bird feeders I built and have used for years at my house in rural Crete have not seen the traffic or used as much feed.’’

Then he cracked: ‘‘It has me wondering if I shouldn't be collecting cicadas for our fall fishing trip?’’

In Hillside, Jim Hantak emailed: ‘‘During the height of the cicada emergence, the contents of my two summer bird feeders lasted about a week. Now it’s back to the usual. The house sparrows are emptying the mixed seed feeder in a day and the peanut feeder in two.’’

Tovey wondered whether the double dose of cicadas were having any impact on fishing. I know the fish adapted, especially bluegills and largemouth bass. I don’t have facts to back that up, just incidental indications.

Anglers seemed to adapt much more to this emergence than to the one in 2007, both with using them as live bait and doing imitation lures and flies. Todd Cook sent photos of cool fly usage, and Brian Athern had a bunch of hand-painted lures that proved to be very valuable.

On June 14, I pulled off I-57 at Midlothian Reservoir for a cicada fix and wasn't disappointed. Cicadas still were going.

Seventeen years ago, in the 2007 emergence, I took all four kids — 2 to 15 years old at the time — to experience the fullness of the emergence at Midlothian Reservoir. Now the oldest is 32 with our first grandchild and the youngest is 19.

In some ways, pulling up old memories is like plucking cicadas.

Overall, it has been a journey of discovery.

On May 19, I first noticed the din and hordes crawling up a tree when driving home from church in Flossmoor.

By June 6, I stopped at a natural area in LaSalle County and ate lunch with a midday din as background music.

By June 22, Philip Willink noticed the ‘‘changing of the guard’’ of annual and periodical cicadas, then noted on X: ‘‘Was (somewhat) surprised to find this ANNUAL cicada mixed in with periodical cicadas. There are now tens of periodical (17-year) cicadas in our yard, when there [were] once tens of thousands. Mass emergence is coming to an end. Such is the way of things.’’