Cicadas Disappoint D.C.

Cicadas not living up to hype

This year's brood two cicadas are currently popping up on the east coast -- but not quite with the drama we initially expected.

We've seen pictures of cicadas in Western Fairfax County, Prince William County and down around Fredericksburg and Stafford. We’ve also seen them in parts of southern Maryland.

But what about the District and the close in suburbs? Experts say bug lovers may be out of luck!

It is difficult to track cicadas because there was not a lot of research technology available seventeen years ago when the brood two group last came around.

The cicada menace around here seems to have gone into maintenance mode; we don't see much evidence of new cicadas emerging, and there are only a few down at ground level most of the time, but the droning in the treetops is incessant.  Dead ones are starting to show up on the ground with some frequency.  After 17 years underground, a few day of singing, and sex, I guess there's not much left to do.  Justin Beiber, beware...

Georgia visited friends a few miles south a few days ago, and reported that they had a much worse infestation; piles of the discarded shell on around trees as seen on the video above.

I found this map of the cicada broods in an article that said the broods rarely overlap.  It explains why DC is "disappointed," because they got theirs in 2004 and will again in 2021. However, there may be some problems with the map, as someone I know reported cicadas this year from that little patch of orange below the Southern Maryland pocket of Brood II.