Cicada on hostas, Home

The cicadas have been making their electricity-through-wet-wires whine for at least a week now, and the strange sound is the very definition of the hottest part of the summer. But though there's no way to avoiding hearing them chorus en masse in the tree canopy, there's almost no likelihood of ever seeing a cicada. Rarely, I'll spot the cast-off husk of a larva that has crawled out of the ground and climbed to the top of a plant to finish the metamorphosis into its adult singing form. But adults within human eyesight are scarcer than scarce. The reason, of course, is that there's safety in the tree tops, particularly when you're lessening the odds of being eaten by a bird by staying in huge singing groups. Today, however, I got extremely, extremely lucky, for as I was getting into the car by the Hosta bed, I noticed a member of the Neotibicen clan just resting on a stick atop the leaves. I took pictures from every conceivable angle, and I even brought the insect inside to try to identify it. Alas, I wasn't able to do so with anything approaching certainty, but I was overjoyed that I had the chance. Rather than collect it, I let it go.