E. has a nice clip of what the cicadas sounded like in Southern Indiana this weekend.

This is the second batch of 17-year cicadas I've witnessed, but I don't remember quite this degree of noise and mess. The phenomenon is pretty well controlled downtown and on campus, but out at the house, surrounded by grass and tall trees, we were almost shouting over the noise.

And the bugs? They rise from the ground like tiny ugly hummingbirds, so many I could see them from across the street. In their way, they are lovely, but they're also laughably uncoordinated. Several flew right into my hair, not an experience I'm eager to repeat. And this one skidded drunkenly off the roof of the car and held onto the wiper for quite a distance.

Postscript: Arrived home on Sunday and within 15 minutes found a cicada lying on our kitchen floor. The cat batted it sloppily for a while, until I felt sorry for it and put it outside. When I looked later, it was gone.