Cicadas everywhere, but not always where they’ve been expected in McHenry County

As the McHenry County Conservation District staff was deciding where to host June’s Cicada Celebration, the Fox Bluff Conservation Area between Cary and Algonquin seemed like the perfect spot.

But the cicadas seem to disagree.

Not only does the park along the Fox River have a number of deciduous trees – needed for cicadas to feed on underground and lay their eggs on after emergence – there is also a good-sized parking lot needed for the visitors who were expected, said Rachel Gustafson, program coordinator with the conservation district.

But just like naturalists “don’t really know how [cicadas] know” when to emerge from the ground on a 17-year-cycle, district officials also don’t know precisely when or where the bugs will emerge. So far, staff has not found any members of the red-eyed, green-bodied 17-year cicada brood at Fox Bluff, or along many sites near the Fox River. Officials also don’t know why, Gustafson said.

According to staff who were with the district back in 2007, the last time the brood emerged, there were cicadas there, Gustafson said. But not yet this cycle.

“There is a whole corridor along the Fox River where they have not emerged,” Gustafson said.

Theories as to why include the fact that there have been three “100-year” flood events along the river in the past 17 years, Gustafson said. Another possibility is that it relates to the amount of undergrowth – the plants under the taller trees – that is nonnative to the area. The buckthorn and honeysuckle may be shading the ground too much, so temperatures have not reached 64 degrees at 8 inches of depth.

“There is a whole corridor along the Fox River where they have not emerged.”

—  Rachel Gustafson, a McHenry County Conservation District program coordinator

District staff went to another district park on Sunday morning and caught enough specimens in 10 minutes so they had cicadas for the event, she said.

Draya Birmingham, 8, of Antioch, got to hold one of those cicadas in her hands.

“It felt tickly,” she said, and gave the experience two thumbs up.

Her mother, Rachel Thiel, came out with her children and family. She’s been fascinated by cicadas since she was a child herself, Thiel said. She remembers going to a family member’s Wisconsin home and catching them as a child “but there is no specific memory” that made her love the bugs.

“I get excited to see them and I wanted my kids to learn about them, too,” she said.

Volunteer Weg Thomas was taking photos for the conservation district. At age 87, Thomas has volunteered with the district for 55 years and has been alive for at least five 17-year-cicada broods. He remembers broods that sang so loud it was hard to sleep, or bugs covering sidewalks and driveways.

“It is like walking into Nick’s Pizza, onto the peanut shells,” Thomas said of past cicada broods. “But I learn something new about them every time I am out.”

There may still be a cicada emergence at Fox Bluff, Gustafson. Bugs that come out after the others are called “stragglers” and it’s somewhat common, as are bugs that come out earlier. The district does ask residents to report when they find cicadas to a database, at MCCD.me/CicadaData. A map that displays submitted entries is at MCCD.me/CicadaMap.

The data gleaned by citizen scientists will help them in 2041, when the brood emerges again.

“We need the community’s help to create that record,” Gustafson said.