Cicada Summer

In my latest adventure, I traverse the Border to Border trail in search of cicadas. Currently in the United States, there are 15 broods of periodic cicadas, 12 that appear every 17 years and 3 that appear every 13 years. Periodic cicadas (genus Magicicada) emerge en masse for a couple months from late April into June to mate, lay eggs, then burrow until their next appearance in 13/17 years depending on species. In contrast, annual cicadas (any of hundreds of other genera) have shorter life cycles that span 2-5 years and do not synchronize so they will come out in any given year. In 2021, Brood X, the Great Eastern Brood, was scheduled to surface across large portions of the eastern United States with concentrations in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Indiana, but reaching into southeast Michigan. Brood X is the largest of the 17-year periodic broods, and it was a once-in-17-years experience (I missed Brood VII, the Onondaga Brood, that emerged around the Finger Lakes in 2018), so I set off to find some cicadas. What else am I doing with my pandemic life?

First I headed to west Ann Arbor and the Bird Hills Nature Area where I’d heard reports of cicada mounds, which indicate their eminent arrival. I saw a bunch of cicada holes, some dead cicadas, a few cicada husks (shed by cicadas after emergence), and a single live cicada, but I might have been too late to catch the cicadas there. When I walked over to the Barton Nature Area, I possibly heard/saw a couple cicadas flying around, but mostly saw cicada wings (from cicadas eaten by birds?).

Cicada husk

A few days later, I biked in the opposite direction to Matthaei Botanical Gardens east of Ann Arbor. On the way over, I could hear the cicadas, so I had some hope of meeting some. When I made it to Mattaei, the greenhouse/conservatory was still closed, but the trails have been open throughout the pandemic. I looped up and around Fleming Creek, first saw several trees with cicada husks hanging off their leaves, then found the cicadas. They’re not scared of people (or anything else) because they’re only around ~1% of the time and rely on their sheer numbers to survive, so there were a whole bunch just hanging out on the trees, flying around, and making noise. Like the partial solar eclipse a few years ago, it was pretty cool. With that, it was mission accomplished. Until my next quest.

Cicadas on tree

Cicada on tree

And Flamingos are Too

Last year the peony garden at the arboretum was “closed” when the peonies were blooming. It’s an outdoor area, so the university couldn’t actually prohibit anyone from visiting, but they asked people not to go to avoid any sort of congregation at the garden. This was before there was a consensus on how transmissible COVID-19 was in general and how much less transmissible it would be outdoors. In addition, the rest of the university was still mostly shut down, including almost all experimental research, and the hospital was recovering from its April surge of COVID-19 patients, so it was a somewhat reasonable request that people temporarily find their entertainment elsewhere while the university sorted itself out.

This year indoor university spaces remained accessible to U-M people only but outdoors was open to all. I suspect they weren’t encouraging people to visit the peonies because they weren’t posting updates on the percentage of the garden in bloom as they had in the past, but they weren’t discouraging visitors either. I spent a couple weeks staking out the garden before getting tipped off on the Ann Arbor subreddit that it was basically in peak bloom one weekend. Once again, I set off for the arboretum on my trusty bike. It was a lovely warm and sunny afternoon, so the peony garden was busy and the river was full of drunk tubers blasting music.

When I arrived, it was too bright for really good peony photos so I decided to take a walk around the arboretum and wait for the sun to go down a bit. Even with the arboretum as busy as it was, it wasn’t too bad away from the peony garden and a couple spots along the river. After a circuit of the arboretum, the sun was still too high, but as I was scouting out shady spots, some clouds rolled in to block the sun and I got my pictures after all.

Previous years at the peony garden: 2017 2018 2019