Not that my family has seen adult cicadas, though :-( We went to Chicago Portage last night and saw a bit of shed skin and a reddish nymph, but no adults were emerging there.
Then, this morning we woke up to find an e-mail from Kathy in LaGrange Park, Illinois. She wrote, “I’ve spent two nights in my garden with my kids watching hundreds of white cicadas emerge from their shells.”
A quick search of Technorati.com turned up a blog with no location information, but with a report that one of her sons counted 700+ cicadas! Her post later on May 20th includes a cool home video and some still photos.
http://deedlebomb.livejournal.com/
Mari reported on CicadaMania that cicadas were emerging in some places in Brookfield, but not in others: http://www.cicadamania.com/message-board/hello-world/#comments
After we posted this, we started getting comments from other folks who have seen huge nunbers of cicadas emerging. So, be sure to read the comments section, below!
So, the Emergence of 2007 really seems to have begun, but in a kind of spotty way.
May 20th, 2007 at 6:31 am We’re in Brookfield, we have a huge emergence on the south side! My children and I have come to the conclusion that they must not like pine trees since in our 2 block radius we have not found any emerging from under pine trees or near them. Odd.
May 20th, 2007 at 10:03 am Deb, During previous emergences, we have found that cicada eggs laid in pines have a high mortality thus you tend not to find many emerging under pines.
May 22nd, 2007 at 9:25 am We found two adults on Saturday in our south suburban backyard in Homewood (moving sluggishly in the cold weather), then saw about five flying around yesterday! This morning there are several more, and I see a few shed skins on our trees. They seem to be smaller than I remember. We found lots of burrows in the backyard when we moved a couple flowerpots. On Saturday, there were no nymphs at the surface (they must tunnel back down lower when it’s cold?) but we saw some on a warmer day. It’s fun to watch them move backwards down their burrows when you uncover them! :) I don’t think the emergence has really started up here quite yet, because there were TONS last time. The “scouts” are definitely out though!
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:25 am I live in Chicago right by Cellular Field, and I have not seen a single cecada as of 6/2/07, not even at our heavily wooded park. Are they supposed to be in Chicago?