Cicada as Cat Toy

What's all that buzzing? Bowie, a Block 832 feline, wants to investigate. Bowie is so called because of having one yellow eye and one blue eye.

The cicada, upside down and clinging to a twig at the bottom of the photo, has previously emerged from a hole in the ground, climbed a tree, joined the August chorus of cicada love songs, mated and is now back at ground level.

Bowie pounces! Sometimes the cicadas get away and sometimes cats eat them after playing with them for a while.

Here's a dead one, propped up for a close-up. There are annual and periodic cicadas. The latter emerge at 17- and 13-year intervals. Everybody in New Jersey has a cicada story, especially about the massive emergences that leave cicada shells all over and result in deafening noise from the treetops.

A cat was most likely the culprit that damaged one of our resident praying mantises. It now has a twisted wing cover. These large insects will fight cats, but it looks like this one lost a battle.

And that's all the news from my back yard on Block 832.

--Bernice Paglia