End of an Era ~ and a 17-year Event

This weekend marked the end of an era for me. Sadly so! I packed up my last cage bird, Kookla my European Starling, and took him south to be cared for by my bird buddy, Darla, for the rest of his days. He lives in a roomy cage, and that came with him. Having no truck, nor access to one to drive to South of Chicago, I made do, and strapped it to my car. It worked out just fine, and arrived with no damage . . . though I did get a few weird looks on the journey!

I have kept cage birds most of my adult life. I have had birds of one kind or another since about 1991 or so. At the worse, they numbered about 120, during the height of the days I was breeding and showing. My best accomplishment was winning the Kellogg Award at the National Cage Bird Show in 1997. I have steadily down-sized since that time, and especially once I got into falconry. Yesterday I gave away my last bird . . . and plan to be bird-free for the unknown future. He is old and looked terrible. He started to molt last year, and never finished the job. He suffers from epilepsy. But he is a long-term pet, and makes lots of fun and amusing noises. Darla is the best soft-bill bird person I know. He will be well cared for!! She'll probably figure out how to get him to feather up again too!

The decision seems to be pretty much made . . . and I begin the slow process of working out the details. I will be moving. Continuing to live where I am at is just no longer a viable option. With the divorce and the loss of my job, it is no longer a sustainable prospect. I must move closer to where I am working, and to where I am going to school. I wait to find out if the people who have expressed interest in my home are truly serious about it. In the meantime, I find homes for almost all of my animals. As much as possible, I hope to be able to keep the hawk. And my big german shepherd! I only need to find a home for Sam, my black dog. All others have been taken care of.

I will miss the place . . . terribly!! But I also leave behind memories . . . and need to be left behind now.

Now . . . for an entomological lesson!!

I visited my friend this weekend at the home of one of her friends. She was house-sitting. I had heard about the hatch out of the 17-year cicada. But I had not heard any! Well . . . they are all in New Lenox, Illinois!! Or at least a great deal of them!

The cicada is an insect that hatches from its egg, then moves down to the ground and begins a 17-year period underground as a nymph. In the soil it eats and grows and well, I guess just hangs out. At 17 years something tells it to come to the surface, crawl up some vertical surface, attach itself, crack its carapace, squeeze out, unfold its adult-form wings, and fly off to find a mate. They attrack said mate by making a VERY LOUD BUZZING NOISE!! I grew up hearing a form of this insect at home. This particular species does this all at the same time.

This weekend . . . New Lenox was infested . . . literally!! The noise from thousands of cicadas was absolutely deafening!! I took a digital film, but don't know how to attach them to this forum. Suffice to say . . . it was an experience!!

So this batch of bugs went to ground at about the same time I took up birds while living in Dallas. Sometimes . . . these things just have a symmetry!

An adult cicada!

The front side . . . a little blurry!

A discarded carapace stuck to the wall.

To open its wings, it must first break out of the nymph stage shell. This one actually died in the process . . . guess he got stuck!