Cicadas causing outdoor concert to go indoors this year. Can't compete with the buggers

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-070313cicadas,0,3503228.story

Ravinia surrenders to cicadas

The Associated Press
Published March 13, 2007, 8:36 AM CDT
The Ravinia Festival in north suburban suburban Highland Park has reworked its summer concert schedule because of the buzz created by a certain red-eyed bug.

Cicadas, known for their loud hum and unique 17-year life cycle, are expected to be out in droves this June.

So officials from the almost 103-year-old music festival moved several outdoor concerts indoors. They have also pushed the date of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's annual summer concert to July 6, which is later than usual when the chirping critters are expected to calm down.

Ravinia Festival chief executive Welz Kauffman said the subtleties of the orchestra's performance would be lost if it had to compete with the bugs.

The 11/2-inch-long black bugs, which can number several hundred thousand per acre, don't sting or bite.

[Burma Jones]

1. they Should have commissioned pieces that incorporated the Cicadas' roar

We here in the east had our emergence a couple years back, I enjoy the noise they make.....

[madinmaryland]

4. It was interesting for a couple of days, but after

a few weeks it got really annoying. Then they all died, and the ground was covered with the crunchy bugs.

Our local weatherman here though, was eating chocolate covered cicadas. :puke:

Norm Lewis on Channel 2 Baltimore.

[Burma Jones]

5. I was living in Takoma Park, MD for the 1987 emergence

Old, established neighborhood...I remember the "click click click' of the millions of tiny bug feet crawling on the sidewalks looking for a place to shed their husks. They covered the tires of my car. Now I live in one of the converted cow pastures in upper Montgomery, a lot fewer of them here. The sound was so odd though, like an alien ship sound effect from a 1950s B movie.

[madinmaryland]

6. I had just moved to MD in 2004, and it was the first time

I had ever seen them. I don't recall them being in CT when I was there in 1987, and they were definately not in CT in 2004.

My daughter who was seven at the time was scared senseless by them. We had to carry her from the car to the apartment, lest she step on one or see one.

[theoldman]

2. All of the Cicadas I have ever seen were green and an inch

long. They appear to come out when the temperatures approach 100 F.

[Virginia Dare]

3. The rats like to eat them though..

they're packed with protien apparently. we had a scourge of rats during our last cicado invasion, it was rather nasty.

[vireo]

7. Not really a "bug"

That would be the order Hemiptera. More inaccurate reporting from the AP. ;)

[ceile]

8. I love the sound they make.

Part of summer, my favorite time of the year.