Despite being absent from my blog for a week or so, cicadas are still very much a part of our lives.

The main thing we’re experiencing now is the extreme volume of the male cicadas, who are generating noises in order to attract females.

The sound is not deafening everywhere, but can get quite loud when you’re under a tree that’s particularly thick with them. The cicadas are generally only making noise during the day — it’s quiet at night (perhaps a little too quiet?)

Even when you’re not very near a tree full of cicadas, there is a kind of eerie background noise in Brookfield, similar to the sound of the alien ships in the 1953 War of the Worlds. According to its trivia page, the spaceship noises in the movie were actually created by backwards electric guitars (maybe cicadas playing backwards electric guitars?).