Heavy Traffic at Fairview Cemetery

Heavy Traffic at Fairview Cemetery

9:00 PM - Fairview Cemetery - Westford Ma. It's been dead here (pun intended) all day. I mean no one visited the cemetery during the day because it was just way too hot. But it is now after dark and the place is being visited by high school aged teenagers probably looking to party quietly or just to neck.

Even the police have been in here patrolling. I'm surprised the police didn't say anything to me though. After all, I'm walking around in a dark cemetery shining my flashlight up into the trees. Man, sometimes looking for cicadas must be a really weird thing to be doing (at least to other people).

It is very hot and humid and the sweat is just pouring off of me while I'm doing my rounds. I find a Tibicen canicularis underneath an overhanging pine tree branch about 3 feet above the ground. My second night visit and it looks like it is going to pay off. It really amazes me how small Tibicen canicularis cicadas are. You can get a rough idea of its size by looking at the pine needles. The body is only about 25 millimeters long but yet, the call of this male once fully mature will be very loud. Here's more pics of this specimen below:

A short time later, I discover a Tibicen lyricen nymph also settling down to molt. It is in a type of tree I do not recognize. The tree seems to be very small in stature so I assume it is only a few years old. I also discover other cast off exuvia in this tree. They all seem to be in the low branches of the canopy underneath small leaves. I will need to find out what species of tree this is. Here's more pics of this specimen during the eclose process.

This definitely seems to be a good time to be out looking for cicadas but man the mosquitos are very bad tonight. I'm glad I got some mosquito repellant with me. Here's more pics of that T. lyricen in the strange tree:

Uh oh, someone is coming in a car. The car pulls up beside me and it is a young high school aged couple. They spot me with my flashlight and here come the questions again. I'm always glad to talk about cicadas so I launch into what I am doing.

They seemed fascinated and THIS time I have props to show them. The girl seems really interested when I show them the molting T. canicularis and T. lyricen cicadas. I told them about the life cycle of cicadas and they seemed totally amazed. I even gave the girl a cast off nymphal shell that I showed her and she seemed very pleased. All in all a very good visit. I told them to watch out for the police as they were in patrolling earlier. Hey, I was a kid once too you know?

Well, after sending them on their merry way I found an additional Tibicen canicularis nymph on a pine tree. So I decide to take this specimen for molting in the terrarium. I still haven't figured out what caused all the cicadas specimens to die suddenly on the 18th of July in the terrarium. I also found another T. lyricen cicada just about finished eclosing. This guy was just a foot off the ground on a crabapple tree.

I ended up staying a total of 3 hours tonight while waiting for three cicadas to finish the eclose process. I ended up with 2 T. canicularis males, a female Tibicen lyricen and a male Tibicen lyricen. All of these specimens with the exception of the T. canicularis will be photographed and released.