Upstater Destinations: Cicada Searching

  |  June 13, 2013
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Cicadas in Malden-on-Hudson, photo by Dani Siddle

It’s entirely possible that 2013 will be known as the Summer of the Cicada, since the elusive creatures started emerging from their underground nurseries starting in May, gracing us with their once-every-seventeen-years presence. We’re fascinated with these prehistoric looking creatures, with their weird red eyes and iridescent fairy wings, sort of like a cross between Tinker Bell and the aliens from District 9. We expected to see them everywhere, swarming picnickers and hikers, smashing head-long into the windshields of oncoming traffic. But it turns out, cicadas only hang out in certain places, and while some in the Hudson Valley and Catskills are inundated with their noisy call, other areas have heard nary a peep from the cicada, which made us wonder: Where are they hiding?

more after the jump…

A very informal crowd-sourcing via Facebook revealed that cicadas can be found close to the Hudson River (but not all of the various creeks and streams around), usually choosing to hide out in spots with heavy old-growth forests. Specifically, we heard they are chilling in Malden-on-Hudson (a hamlet in Saugerties – here’s a GMAP), in Rhinebeck/Red Hook around the Poet’s Walk area, New Paltz, Route 32 in Kingston, and spots in Greene County.

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Photo by Dani Siddle

We got curious and decided to go find them ourselves, so we hopped in the car and headed north on Route 9W from the village of Saugerties toward Catskill (we were actually on our way to walk around the waterfront park in Coxsackie and grab a Mission-style burrito from Mambo Burrito), and as soon as we hit the Greene County line, the noise from the cicadas became almost deafening. Although we couldn’t see them at first, the longer we looked into the lush forest that borders 9W near the Ulster/Greene line, we saw hundreds, perhaps thousands of them. Like star-gazing, the longer we looked, the more we saw. Talk about Apocalyptic. Many sacrificed themselves under the tread of our tires, and as soon as we hit the Catskill town line, the cicada calls stopped.

Have you seen the cicada swarms near where you live? Let us know in the comments.

About Kandy Harris

Kandy is a writer and musician/music teacher living in Saugerties, NY.

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