Sunday 17 December 2017

Cicada Feast

This is a very big summer for Cicadas and we have continuous Cicada singing from dawn to dusk. A number of species can be heard from the almost continuous hissing calls to pulsing drumming. It so prevalent that it just becomes a white background sound almost like the noise of traffic at a busy intersection. In the video You can hear various calls in the background of the song of the cicada on the tree.
I have posted a couple of cicada species previously but today have another to add to our list, the Floury Baker (so called due to their floury appearance when the emerge from their nymph skin) Aleeta curvicosta.

  

 Another cicada photographed today was a female Cherrynose Macrotristvia angularis, (I have previously posted a photo of a male)


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I noted that one of our trees Angophora floribunda  seemed to be a magnet for cicadas with large number on the branches and a real ear splitting noise coming from the location.
A movement high in the branches gave away the location of another who had noticed the abundance of cicadas and was busy consuming any that came in reach.


As you can see this character has been gorging on cicadas, but was still going for more, making the most of this glut of food.
There was a smaller Lace Monitor on another part of the tree but did not seem to be as proficient in getting cicadas as this very large one.


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