Traveling through midwest USA to the eastern coast, one could not help hearing the nuisance noise of cicadas and see thousands of them descending on a square meter of land. Brood X cicadas emerge every 17 years. Through the month of June and by now many are dying off. These periodical cicadas spent many years feeding on tree-root fluid, and have now emerged, mated, laid eggs and soon all will be quiet again.

While many of us are buzzed-out with the cicada noise, let’s remember the good things about cicadas. A female cicada can lay 500 eggs on new tree leaves and those young ones provide natural tree pruning. The holes in the ground provide natural aeration and cicadas are food for birds and other animals. Finally, when they die they are natural fertilization for trees.

In Arizona, we have 50 of the 3,000 species of cicadas in the world and these cicadas are annual cicadas, not the periodical cicadas of Brood X. When I hear cicadas in Arizona, I know 100 degree weather is not far behind.