Some people are really clueless. I had a neighbor who didn't realize dry leaves could burn. It would be funny if they hadn’t made a really good attempt to burn their entire lot to the ground.

He brought a noise machine because he figured it would be too quiet.

He ended up buying ear plugs because the bugs and birds were so loud at night. And he grew to hate whippoorwills.

I enjoyed that quite thoroughly.

I feed him because it's also hilarious.

Is that slang for a radio?

And that's kinda comforting. "Extremely loud" is the exception anyway.

It's when nature falls silent, or people-generated noise drowns out everything else, that's distressing (or depressing).

https://youtu.be/sh1mfzdWOuo?feature=shared

I can imagine that getting annoying.

Volume wise, it seems decibels below daily flocks of thousands of Sulpher Crested Cockatoos rap battling flocks of Corellas which we get in this part (any parts) of Australia.

For interest: Individual Australian parrot calls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF8Nr_as0CI

Now, multiply by a thousand and put them in trees outside your house.

Force of nature is correct terminology, here.

So I’ve just resigned to go to sleep earlier.

Well, look at the time I’m off to bed!

Here in an urban-residential boundary area, I have the problem of large crickets getting into my apartment (they're fairly quiet) and downstairs dogs so loud I can hear them barking at all hours day and night through a supposedly solid concrete floor. Of the latter, of course the immature kidult neighbors don't notice and don't care how rude they are having untrained, inappropriate breeds of dogs (plural). They just let their dogs relieve themselves immediately outside the front door of the building.

My mom lives around the corner from there though. I was sad when the geniuses at Earth Burger decided to reimagine themselves as a salad kale? burger? bowl shop. The owner has some absurd grand vision but fails to realize Texas fast food requires a giant sign visible from I-35, consistency, and listening to customers.

Perhaps leased apartments in the style of invite-only co-op NYC buildings where the security guards actually lift a finger now and then would be an improvement.

At least it won't be my problem anymore in about 2 months because I'm out of this popcorn stand.

There's a stretch of road through a valley in the bush (an Australian term kinda like forest) that I used to ride daily for about 20 years - Wakehurst Parkway between Frenchs Forest and Narrabeen, for anyone familiar with Sydneys Northern Beaches.

In a "good" cicada year, they can be loud enough for a long stretch of that road that they completely overwhelm the engine noise of that bike. Really really loud. Loud enough that I'd often drop two or three gears and pin the throttle wide open just to amaze myself that a bunch of insects were making more noise than my Ducati.

And also has me convinced that getting spraying in the face with cicada pee is no big deal.

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cicadas-zombies-hyper-sexual-se...

Those few, just part-time.

It's interesting though. The spores can be viable for years and it's thought they are transmitted via the soil. So why doesn't this spread to other years or even the annual broods?

A week ago over here the air temperature spiked to about 80 but apparently the ground temperature only hit 63.

Also here, I don't think cicadas are "periodical". It's an every year occurrence.

It seems to be different in the US?

This years exciting horror is the result of a bunch of things, summarized from the University of Connecticut [https://cicadas.uconn.edu]:

* For the first time since 2015 a 13-year brood will emerge in the same year as a 17-year brood.

* For the first time since 1998 adjacent 13-and 17-year broods will emerge in the same year.

* For the first time since 1803 Brood XIX and XIII will co-emerge.

This particular event won't be one of the all encompassing horrors though as apparently the range of the overlap is relatively small.

It's amazing how powerful that sound is.

For a while I've been wanting to write a southern gothic short story about the sound and the sadness and/or insanity that it drives people to.

Be advised the quality really drops off after "eye-opening arc", meakashi-hen

When I was a kid Star Trek Voyager broadcast on a Sunday night, and it was the last thing on a weekend before bed. So I had exactly the same issue with the end credits music, just more frequent!