Death under the Black Walnut

 It was another bad day for a cicada.  As I have mentioned before, I have European hornets in the area.  I see them frequently during the summer months.  Every once in a while, I head a cicada alarm call.  When it's coming from the ground, it's invariably a scene like this:

It's usually around the black walnut tree by the house. European hornets are meat eaters, so go after a variety of insects.  As my other post showed, they are very aggressive in hunting, even to the point of cutting trapped insects out of spiderwebs (I have only seen that the one time).  Fortunately, they don't seem to go after people much, except around their nest (which is true of most stinging insects).

Eclipse

I've been in a couple of solar eclipses in my life.  Both times I thought that the early phases--partial blockage of the sun--were almost imperceptible.  As the eclipse progressed, it eventually did look noticeably different--I thought then (20 years ago) and more recently (a couple of weeks ago) that it was like looking through heavily-tinted glass.  The sun was still shining, but it was dim.

These pictures capture what I thought I saw.  The darker was was just under-exposed a couple of stops by me because the camera tried to make the picture look like a normal sunny day.  The darker one is a better rendition of what I was seeing as the eclipse percentage moved higher.

Another thing I noticed this time but that I don't remember during the last eclipse (in 1994) is that the sun provided little warmth after a certain point.  Standing in the sun didn't feel hot, even though it was still relatively bright. Also, the interior of the truck, which was in the sun, wasn't hotter than the outside.

I don't have animals and didn't really notice anything different, with one exception:  Once it got very dark, a dusk-singing cicada let loose and started singing.  On a normal day, they only start singing in twilight once it is fairly dark (still during civil twilight, but not immediately after the sun sets).

A Bad Day for a Cicada

Early August is high time for cicadas--numerous species are in the trees singing with abandon every day from early morning until dusk.  Cicadas in distress have a non-melodic buzzing that is very noticeable.  Usually when I hear it, it means a cicada is trying to escape a bird.  Recently, I heard it nearby and low--on the ground.  It turned out the cicada was being stung by a wasp.  The wasp's markings don't match those of the cicada killer.  Someone later suggested that it was a European hornet, and that seems to fit.  The European hornet is an insect feeder, so the cicada still met a very bad end.  Early August is, according to one study, prime time for cicada mortality at the hands of cicada killers (though I don't know if it'd be earlier or later in Georgia vs. West Virginia).  I did know someone who lived in a neighborhood with a lot of them, and they were very apparent in August, flying low over the grass.

It's also prime time for spiders.  There are a few large types in Georgia; one that I'm seeing a lot of right now are argiopes; last year I saw one near where this one was located.  This year there are four, probably descendants of last year's spider.  One has an egg sac in a pretty exposed location.

The day after I shot the one hornet dispatching the cicada, I saw another one robbing the web of one of the spiders.  This is mentioned in the Wikipedia entry for the hornet...the spider did not react while this all was going on.  I apologize for the poor focus; it was shot with my phone and with the full sun it was hard to see the screen.  I also didn't want to get all that close.

Obviously, there's a nest somewhere nearby.

Cicada Time

Ok, so this is a little random.  One of the cool summer insects we have in Georgia is cicadas. Probably almost every part of the country has at least one variety.  While nowhere near as cool as fireflies, they're pretty fun.  They have just started to emerge in the last couple of weeks, and now can be heard singing throughout the day (different species sing at different times, and they pretty much shut up after dusk when other loud insects come to the fore).

As probably everyone knows, they spend most of their lives underground, then emerge at dusk one evening once they've grown enough and the soil has warmed.  They climb a convenient vertical surface, split their skin, and pop out as an adult.  By dawn, their wings have unfurled and dried, and they fly off, to spend a short time in the trees looking for a mate.

We don't have the periodical cicadas where I am, but we have a number of varieties that are present every year.  Cicada songs can be heard at Songsofinsects.com (I have no affiliation with them, but if you like the page I hope you buy their book--I did).  According to the individual species pages, there are several varieties that should be here, and I think I've heard a lot of them (Hieroglyphic, Swamp, Scissor-Grinder, and Northeast Dusk-Singing for sure [the name of the latter suggests they shouldn't be here, but their range does extend this far south]).

So this evening while I was out moving a soaker hose (drought is my constant companion), I saw this individual heading for my apricot tree.  I have no idea what kind it is, and I'm not going to stay up as late as I would have to tonight to see it emerge.  I did that once when I was in junior high school, but work intrudes now--as do mosquitoes.

There are a few downsides to life here in the summer (every season has pluses and minuses)--so it's important to enjoy the nice things.

Edited to add:  I guess I wouldn't have had to wait long, after all.  I went out to shut the soaker hose down and looked for the cicada--it was getting close to dark (at the end of  'civil twilight') and was about 45 minutes after the above picture was taken.  The cicada had reached its final spot and was already most of the way out of its shell.  I snapped this, then left it alone to finish its emergence.