Cicada Journals June 16th 2007 - Brood XIII

June 16th, 2007 - More Brood XIII Trip Information.

I thought I would continue on with my adventures in the mid-west last week and the week before. Just so I can get all the information up. I will be doing an update every other day until I get caught up.

June 3rd - Off to Peoria and Jubilee College State Park.

I woke up early this morning and checked out of the Red Roof Inn in Deerfield said my good byes to Roy Troutman and Joe Green and headed south to a place called Jubilee College State Park just west of Peoria Illinois to meet up with the folks out of the University of Connecticut at Storrs. I will be helping them for the next week or so with distribution mapping of Brood XIII (which I started already back in May in Michigan and Indiana)

I was told that I could expect a three hour drive from Deerfield. When you get outside of the Chicago area the scenery of Illinois sure does change!! The terrain gets flat as you drive further and further south into farm country. There is nothing but miles and miles of cultivated fields with ribbon-straight highways cutting through them and you can see for miles. People sure do drive fast on these stretches of highway!

Brood XIII Mapping Along the Way

I stopped at several places just to see what I could see along the way. It was mostly highway driving starting from I 55 South then jumping on to I 74 West. I stopped at several rest areas and even the Illinois & Michigan Canal State Trail off of Route 6 West. At some places I got negative readings (but these are just as important as the positives) and a few positives including outside Peoria between Highway 150 and I 74 where the M. cassinis could be heard in my car on the highway with the windows closed and the air conditioner and radio on and traveling at 75 miles an hour!!

I arrived at the park around 3:00 pm and quickly signed in. The Magicicadas have been in full swing here for over a week and boy were they loud!! I asked the attendants where the group from UCONN were camped and they showed me and was given a campsite close them.

About Jubilee College State Park.

Jubilee College State Park is a 3,200-acre facility, located in Peoria County between the towns of Kickapoo and Brimfield, just off U.S. Route 150. This scenic area, with its rolling topography and meandering Jubilee Creek, offers various outdoor recreational opportunities. They offer horseback riding trails, picnicking areas, camping (for $15.00 a night) which is a great deal. All the campsites come with electricity. They have shower facilities and bathroom houses. Some people can even reserve whole picnic areas to have private parties and other functions. Though I don't know how much this costs but several parties were going on while we were there.

Time to Set Up Camp.

Unfortunately, the UCONN crew weren't around. It didn't matter though as it took me several hours to set up my camp site. The toughest part about setting up camp for me was placing the tarp effectively enough so that it covered my tent. I use this brown tarp as an extra layer of protection against the rain though my tent is perfectly waterproof. The tarp has to be placed in such a way so that if it does rain, the water runs off the tarp and away from my tent. Setting this up in the wind was a real pain in the @$$!!. Click the thumbnail to the right to view my completed camp.

It was just about suppertime by the time I got done setting up camp and the UCONN Crew still wasn't around so I decided to fry myself up a couple of hamburgers.

The group from UCONN finally came back to camp at around 7:00 pm. We discussed the itinerary for the next few days. My task is to map the south-western edge of Brood XIII which starts just outside of Springfield Illinois.

Ultimately the Brood XIII distribution mapping will involve many separate individuals in our group. The data collected will be analyzed and will compare Brood XIII's relationship with the other broods known to emerge around it.

Tomorrow should prove interesting.

June 4th - Start with a Positive Record and End with a Positive Record.

That was John Cooley's credo. It is always important to start every distribution mapping project with an already known point that has a positive record of Magicicadas and just go from there. It is also as equally important to end with a positive record for the same reason. Then it is just a matter of surveying the areas in-between these two points.

Ordinarily, Latitude and Longitudinal readings should be taken with a GPS every 10th of a mile or so. This usually works best with two individuals. One person driving and the other marking off the data points. But since it was me and I was all alone I only took data points on the average of every 4 minutes apart. That is I would take a positive or negative reading then drive for 4 minutes along a pre-determined route and take another reading.

Riverside Park - Springfield Illinois.

Prior to 2007 back in 1990 there were positive records for Brood XIII's appearance at Riverside Park along the Sangamon River just north of Springfield. This data point was given to me by John Cooley to check out and was to be my first positive record to work from. When I went there I was very disappointed though. I saw evidence of very few exit holes and very few exuvia. But worst of all, I heard no calling whatsoever! So already a known positive record was made into a negative in the span of just 17 years!

So, a real conundrum has started out the surveying of this southwestern edge of Brood XIII.

However just across the Sangamon River and north of Riverside Park, is Carpenter Park Nature Preserve. Here I could hear light chorusing of M. septendecim and M. cassini and I must stress that these were light choruses. Maybe there was an error in the recording of this data point. Maybe back in 1990 it was Carpenter Park instead of Riverside Park but it was marked down wrong because whomever it was who took the data didn't realize these parks were in fact separate but just shared a boundary (see the map for clarification).

Brood XIII Alive and Well at Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site.

So, starting at this point (my first positive record) I spent the day winding my way northwest taking data points every four miles or so which ended up being many data points. of both positive and negative. I ended up in Petersburg Illinois at Lincoln's New Salem State Historic site. This site was the site of a previous positive record given to me by John Cooley and where I ended my mapping for the day. I'm happy to report that the cicadas are here and they are thriving!

The Magicicadas were absolutely screaming here. I witnessed many Magicicada females ovipositing in very young trees that bordered a parking lot at the top of a large hill where the restaurant is at the site.

These trees are directly across from a heavily wooded area and prove (according to Dr. Gene Kritsky) that Magicicada females do like younger trees in well landscaped "grassy" areas and will leave wood areas where there are older trees and heavy undergrowth for these well landscaped areas.

Unfortunately though, serious damage can be done to young trees due to the severity of many female Magicicadas ovipositing in the same tree. Actually, the female Magicicadas make little "slices" in the bark of thin branches of young trees and can deposit as many as 60 eggs in each slice. She can make many slices depositing more and more eggs. Sometimes when more than one female oviposits on the same branch this can stress the tree too much and cause the branch tips to actually turn brown and die.

Other observations included watching as M. cassini males attempted to come together to form aggregations. Like in these three little guys to the left. Also, the M. cassinis were so loud, they were drowning out the M. septendecims which were putting on a rather loud performance as well. In addition, I noticed many M. septendecim males calling from of all places the parking lot!! They were just sitting on the ground happily calling in their haunting ufo-like call.

I'd like to end this update with a video of thousands of M. cassini calling and my attempt to zero in on one individual calling male. The range of my microphone is somewhat dismal and cannot really convey exactly how loud these Magicicada are in person. Click the thumbnail to the right to watch the video.