Emerging

If you remember some very early entries on this site then you will know that the Beesley girls (Michaela, Carrie, and now Lily) LOVE nature. Anything that has to do with good ol' Mother Earth captures our girls' attention.

This evening Alex and I were attempting to get the girls into the car for a quick trip to the library. We have experienced over and over that nothing ever happens quickly at our house! Purse on my shoulder, library bag in hand, Lily on my hip, and keys in the door I was ready to head out. Alex was following with the diaper bag (can't leave home without that!). We were ready!

Wait...where are Carrie and Michaela?! We told them to get into the car but as usual they were running about the yard chasing moths, exploring ant mounds, inspecting a spider web that was built at some point during the day right under my cement bench (mental note...take that down before I sit on there again!), and doing anything but getting into the car.

One more call out to them and suddenly we hear almost in unison, "Come quick! It's a cicada hatching from its skin! Mom! Dad!"

Well, checking our Sycamore tree in the front yard for cicada skins has become routine at our house. It is not unusual to find at least one skin during the search. The girls then delicately pick the skin off the tree to examine it closer. Sometimes the skin gets hung back on the tree and sometimes it makes its way into the house.

Let me tell you, I am no longer startled when I find crushed dried up bugs while cleaning the house. They always turn out to be cicada skins that the girls wanted to keep for some reason or another and then forget about only leaving them for me to discover some weeks later!

Tonight was the first time any of us have actually been able to witness the cicada fly coming out of the hard brown beetle-like skin. The first pictures were all taken around 7:20pm. Then we ventured off to the library and left the cicada to finish emerging undisturbed.

The nubs on the side of the body are the large wings waiting to be spread out and dried.

Upon our return home about an hour later the girls raced over to the tree. "The cicada is out! It's all the way out of the skin!"

It was unbelievable! There, clinging to the bark of the tree was the huge beautiful fly! It always amazes me how fast they emerge and spread their wings. Being the picture fanatic that I am I raced into the house to get my camera to capture some shots before the fly was off never to be seen again. Several mosquito bites later, here are a couple of the many pictures I captured.

This is the last picture I snapped of our "Dog-Day Harvestfly" before we bid him farewell.