I’ve said it before and I will say it again: There is a bug that is the best bug, and it is the cicada. We’ve just come out of August, the time of the dog-day cicadas – the ones that come out every year. This one was greeted me on my stoop the other day, as I arrived home after a dog walk.
The dog-day cicadas aren’t like the 17-year cicadas. Well, they are, in that they are also cicadas, and they are also adorable and perfect. The dog-day cicadas are black and green, much subtler than the 17-year cicadas’ wild red eyes and orange decorations. Unlike the 17-year cicadas, the dog-day cicadas arrive in reasonable numbers. And you don’t see them as often; they seem to have an instinct for self-preservation through secrecy, like a normal edible animal. A dog-day cicada has never mistaken my leg for a tree and climbed up it, looking for a mate.
But I do spot them occasionally, over the years. A day or two before this one, I saw two mating on the sidewalk. I ushered the pair over to a sheltered spot among some tree roots, although, linked butt to butt as they were, they looked enough like a poop that they probably weren’t going to get stepped on anyway. “Entomology!” declared a passerby, as I nudged them along and they buzzed wildly – they did not like being disturbed.
I looked at my doorstep cicada and worried about it getting squished later, if I thoughtlessly came back outside to water the oregano or something, so I grasped it firmly, a finger on either side of the thorax, and tossed it toward some plants. But it had bigger dreams; it extended the flight and took its leave by wing, away, past my parked car, into the distance, off to live its short cicada life.
Photo: Helen Fields, obviously
