This weekend several people in Hopkinsville have started posting social media photos of the periodical cicadas that are emerging from their years’ long, underground slumber.
A couple of specific sights include Jeffers Bend Environmental Center on the north side of Hopkinsville and Casey Jones Distillery a few miles west of town.
Only four counties in Kentucky — Christian, Allen, Caldwell and Trigg — are expected to see the Broad XIX cicadas between now and the middle of June.
It’s a big year for periodical cicadas with two broods emerging in various parts of the United States. Here’s more about that in a column I wrote in January.
There are many things about cicadas that amaze us — they way they live underground for years, their red eyes, their relatively brief lives above ground, and of course, the high-pitched noise the males make when they are trying to attract females for mating.
Several online tools are handy for tracking cicadas. One of the most popular sites is Cicada Mania.
You can participate in a citizen science project through the Cicada Safari app on a smartphone. I downloaded it Sunday and found that 27 sightings were already recorded in or near Hopkinsville, along with six in Crofton, 18 in Dawson Springs and seven in Trigg County. You can use the mobile app to submit your own photos and help document where the cicadas are appearing.
If you are curious (and brave) enough to try cicadas on a plate, here are some recipes NPR shared in a story this week. And here’s one for Cicadas Stir Fry from Ohio State University.
Happy hunting, y’all.
Jennifer P. Brown
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. She spent 30 years as a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition.
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