In the Northern parts of Virginia and in Maryland in general the 17-year cicadas are in full force. While the talking heads on the local tv stations caution people about the cicadas flying into your hair and other hysteria-mongering (as is usual for tv-type news), they are in actuality a miracle to behold.

I’ve taken a simple sound recording of them just to show how awesome they are – I simply opened my window in Falls Church, Virginia (where I work) and held out a microphone (actually I didn’t even clear the window because of the screen, but you get the idea). In the mp3 clip (about 1.2MB) you can hear normal outdoors-in-the-city sounds, such as cars passing on the road or birds chirping. But if you listen closely you will hear a definite background hum, kind of like the sound of an original Star Trek phaser firing constantly. This hum is the sound of thousands of cicadas way up in the trees trying to attract a mate so that they can breed, die, and let the 17-year cycle start anew. The audio might have been better had I actually gone outside the window, perhaps climbing to the top of a tree, but I think from the sample you can get the idea.

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