I have never been in an area to hear nor see these things. Big, Black with bright red eyes, and in my area transparent wings which have golden yellow all around the wing veins.
Yes it is the 17 year Cicadas. 1 inch or more long, and make the loudest singing sound I have ever heard. They are making the lovely Blue Jay birds excited as normally you'd only see a single pair of Jays as they are VERY territorial, but this morning we had around 10 Blue Jays in the Yard all gorging on newly molted Cicadas.
Every place I look I see the empty skin shells of the Nymphs which came to the surf to complete their final life cycle. They have no mouths so can't bite, and they do drink fluids from trees like Maple trees and young friut trees. They can cling on like super glue to anything their legs hold. Last night I had the honors of watching a Cicada do it's final molt on my fence at the bottom of my deck entrance ramp. It was amazing to see, and watch the new creature emerge. It was like watching a Butterfly emerge from it's cocoon.
This is what they look like just emerging from their 17 year long underground life
They climb up anything they can climb and seem to want to be as high up as is possible before beginning their last and final molt of their life. Once they find a spot they feel is safe from all kinds of predators they attach their big strong legs and nothing will knock them down even a full force wind of a Thunder Storm. Soon their skin splits at the head area and the new creature begins to come forth.
Here the Cicada's head has already come out of the skin casing
In about 30 minutes the Cicada has begun shaking and trembling which is how it extracts the little wing nubs.
Then it does the oddest thing. It actually lets go of the skin molt and hangs backwards by two very thin strings of material inside the skin casing. Every single one that I have watched emerge does this position, and remains in this position for over and hour.
I missed out on my little friend on the deck fence doing this backwards pose, and missed this stage which is the Cicada slowly pumping blood through the wings to enlarge them and dry them out. Here's one from the night before so you can see.
1 hour from seeing my little friend preparing to lay upsidedown this is what SHE now looked like.
Her wings are now fully expanded and she is just waiting for them to finish drying to enable her to fold them down and back in proper Cicada wing position. 1 hour later she now can do that and is become the classic look of an adult Cicada except her body is still not finished.
Yet 1 more hour later and you can see her body turning darker and hardening completely.
That was the last time I would see her on the fence as and hour later she had begun her last duty in life and that is to take flight and seek a mate and breed and then lay her eggs. She lays her eggs in a slit in a young branch of mostly Maple trees. This doesn't do much harm to the tree except for any leaves below the slit which wilt and die leaving what scientist and tree experts call Flags. The more flags found the bigger the emergence was, and the healthier the Brood of Cicadas are. We are witnessing the Brood V and XXII this year. Interesting tidbit about these insects they are territorial and only emerge in certain locations every 17 years. Some broods have emerged since the 1800s when they were first seen.
Here is what my little friend would have looked like right before she took flight.
And if she is successful in mating this will be her right before slitting the young branch to deposit her many eggs into the limb.
Though many animals eat Cicadas they do absorb high levels of Mercury from their underground days and if too many are consumed it can cause Mercury poisoning so won't see if the Hamsters would like a tasty high protein treat of Cicada.
Though I did learn of one beautiful animal who was out in the woods enjoying the easy free meal of thousands of Newly emerged Cicadas. This animals screams are very very spooky and though I have heard them in the past it always sent chills up my spine hearing them in the dead of the night.
It is the territorial scream of a red Fox. If you dare give a listen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk1mAd77Hr4
The Video is no where near as creepy sounding as it is in real life.