by Roland D. Hallee

Last week, while doing some yard work, my wife noticed some insects on our outdoor fire pit. When summoned, I went over and identified the “bug” as the cicada exoskeleton, the part the cicada leaves behind its external skeleton, a hard, protective outer shell. We counted 11 of them. As a cicada grows, it outgrows its exoskeleton and must molt, shedding the old, hard shell and emerging as a larger, soft-bodied form.

The cicadas are a superfamily of insects, with more than 3,000 species described from around the world. Cicadas have prominent eyes set wide apart, short antennae, and membranous front wings. They have an exceptionally loud song, produced in most species by the rapid buckling and unbuckling of drum-like tymbals. They typically live in trees, feeding on watery sap from xylem tissue, and laying their eggs in a slit in the bark. Most cicadas are cryptic. The vast majority of species are active during the day as adults, with some calling at dawn or dusk. Only a rare few species are known to be nocturnal.

One exclusively North American genus, (the periodical cicadas), which spend most of their lives as underground nymphs, emerge in predictable intervals of 13 or 17 years, depending on the species and the location. The unusual duration and synchronization of their emergence may reduce the number of cicadas lost to predation, both by making them a less reliably available prey (so any predator that evolved to depend on cicadas for sustenance might starve waiting for their emergence), and by emerging in such huge numbers they will satiate any remaining predators before losing enough of their number to threaten their survival as a species.

The annual cicadas are species that emerge every year. Though these cicadas’ life cycles can vary from one to nine or more years as underground nymphs, their emergence above ground as adults is not synchronized, so some members of each species appear every year.

The “singing” of male cicadas is produced principally and in the majority of species using a special structure called a tymbal, a pair of which lies below each side of the anterior abdominal region. The structure is buckled by muscular action and, being made of resilin, unbuckles rapidly on muscle relaxation, producing their characteristic sounds. Some cicadas, however, have mechanisms for stridulation, sometimes in addition to the tymbals. Here, the wings are rubbed over a series of midthoracic ridges. Although only males produce the cicadas’ distinctive sounds, both sexes have membranous structures called tympana (singular – tympanum) by which they detect sounds, the equivalent of having ears.

For the human ear, telling precisely where a cicada song originates is often difficult. The pitch is nearly constant, the sound is continuous to the human ear, and cicadas sing in scattered groups. In addition to the mating song, many species have a distinct distress call, usually a broken and erratic sound emitted by the insect when seized or panicked. Some species also have courtship songs, generally quieter, and produced after a female has been drawn to the calling song. Males also produce encounter calls, whether in courtship or to maintain personal space within choruses.

Most cicadas go through a life cycle that lasts two – five years. Some species have much longer life cycles, such as the North American genus, which has a number of distinct “broods” that go through either a 17-year or in some parts of the region, a 13-year life cycle. For example, a 17-year cicada with a predator with a five-year life cycle will only be threatened by a peak predator population every 85 (5 × 17) years, while a non-prime cycle such as 15 would be endangered at every year of emergence. Cicadas are commonly eaten by birds and mammals, as well as bats, wasps, mantises, spiders, and robber flies. In times of mass emergence of cicadas, various amphibians, fish, reptiles, mammals, and birds change their foraging habits so as to benefit from the glut. Newly-hatched nymphs may be eaten by ants, and nymphs living underground are preyed on by burrowing mammals such as moles.but observations of predator responses refute the claim.

In mythology and folklore Cicadas have been used as money, in folk medicine, to forecast the weather, to provide song (in China), and in folklore and myths around the world.

Cicadas feed on sap; they do not bite or sting in a true sense, but may occasionally mistake a person’s arm for a plant limb and attempt to feed. Male cicadas produce very loud calls that can damage human hearing.

Cicadas are not major agricultural pests, but in some outbreak years, trees may be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of females laying their eggs in the shoots. Small trees may wilt and larger trees may lose small branches. Although in general, the feeding activities of the nymphs do little damage, during the year before an outbreak of periodic cicadas, the large nymphs feed heavily and plant growth may suffer.[111] Some species have turned from wild grasses to sugarcane, which affects the crop adversely, and in a few isolated cases, females have oviposited on cash crops such as date palms, grape vines, citrus trees, asparagus, and cotton. Cicadas sometimes cause damage to ornamental shrubs and trees, mainly in the form of scarring left on tree branches where the females have laid their eggs. Branches of young trees may die as a result.

Now we know a little more about the insect that makes that loud, buzzing noise in mid-summer.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

What former New England Patriots player was nicknamed “the law firm”?

by Roland D. Hallee

My wife has a strong liking for hummingbirds. At camp, she has five feeders spread around the lot. We watch them constantly.

Lately – I’ve counted at least eight – they have been swarming the feeders, fighting amongs themselves, and it’s a wonder they get to eat at all, what with chasing any other hummer that approaches a feeding station.

Add to that the presents of bees, who during this dry spell, have been in search of liquids themselves.

Those tiny bees, keep chasing off the hummingbirds. Why would a diminutive bee scare away a hummingbird, which even though tiny themselves, are behemoths compared to the bees?

Hummingbirds belong to an avian family and their closest relatives are the equally fascinating swifts. Hummingbirds are small with long, narrow bills and small, saber-like wings.

Males (and occasionally females) often have a colorful gorget – small, stiff, highly reflective, colored feathers on the throat and upper chest. These shiny feathers and others around the head may look sooty black until a hummingbird turns its head to catch the sun and display the intense, metallic spectral color.

It makes sense that the smallest birds come from the smallest eggs, but how small? The one to two eggs in a ruby-throated hummingbird clutch are about as tiny as peas and are placed in a walnut shell-sized cup woven from spider webs and plant material.

Hummingbirds and swifts are able to stroke with power both on the down- and up-beat of a wing flap. Their power and small size allow tremendous agility in flight. In fact, hummingbirds are the only vertebrates capable of sustained hovering (staying in one place during flight), and they can fly backward and upside-down as well.

To their maneuverability, hummingbirds add speed and stamina. They have been clocked at close to 30 mph indirect flight and more than 45 mph during courtship dives. Migratory ruby-throated hummingbirds have no problem flying 18 to 20 straight hours to cross the Gulf of Mexico, powered by their fat stores and given a bit of help from winds.

A ruby-throated hummingbird’s heart beats from 225 times per minute when the bird is at rest to more than 1,200 times per minute when it is flying. Its wings beat about 70 times per second in direct flight and more than 200 times per second while diving.

Hummingbirds are one of the few groups of birds that are known to go into torpor. Torpor is a very deep, sleep-like state in which metabolic functions are slowed to a minimum and a very low body temperature is maintained. If torpor lasted for long periods, we would call it hibernation, but hummingbirds can go into torpor any night of the year when temperature and food conditions demand it.

Their high-energy lifestyle compels hummingbirds to locate reliable food resources. Feeding on flowers puts hummingbirds at the mercy of the flowering seasons of the plants upon which they depend. Hummingbirds solve this by being very mobile, and their movements are often shaped by the changing pattern of flower production over time.

Hummingbirds don’t always depend entirely on flowers. During the breeding season, in particular, hummingbirds hover mid-air and catch small flying insects to eat and feed to their nestlings.

In northern and high-elevation areas, hummingbirds depend upon sap-wells of woodpeckers known as sapsuckers. The woodpeckers are able to keep the sugary sap of trees flowing, and the hummingbirds sneak in to take advantage of the woodpeckers’ work.

Hummingbirds are, for the most part, unsociable. In fact, the adjectives pugnacious and feisty are often appropriate. When more than one hummingbird is around, it is often a scene of repeated high-speed chases. In fact, male and female hummingbirds do not form a pair-bond after mating, and the female is left to care for eggs and chicks alone.

What is all this fighting about? Plants take time to secrete nectar into their flowers. In an ideal world, hummingbirds should time their visits to flowers to take advantage of a full load of nectar. But they wait to feed at a flower at the risk of other hummingbirds beating them to the punch. It is therefore worth the effort for hummingbirds to chase away competitors, so they have access and control of their favorite flowers.

So, let’s get back to the original question.

Those tiny bees are able to scare away a hummingbird because a bee sting to a hummingbird can be fatal. Hummingbirds have very small bodies and a single bee sting, especially in a sensitive area, can be enough to cause death due to the venom. While hummingbirds can sometimes be aggressive towards bees, the bees can also be aggressive towards them, especially around feeders.

With only about a month left before hummingbirds head south, enjoy the time spent watching their antics.

Another note: we’ve had bird feeding stations for years, and attract many different, common songbirds. Recently, hummingbirds have been buzzing around like an airport with no flight controllers. Can they be scaring off other birds? We haven’t seen our songbirds in weeks.

We’re wondering if they could be bullying the other birds away? It seems that since they’ve taken over, our regular visitors have stopped appearing.

The answer: Yes, hummingbirds can sometimes scare away other songbirds from feeders, primarily due to their territorial and aggressive nature, especially around nectar sources. While they are small, hummingbirds can be quite assertive in defending their feeding territories, which can deter larger or more timid birds from approaching.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

Who was coach of the New England Patriots when they went 1-15 in 1990?

by Roland D. Hallee

Because I spend my summers at Webber Pond, in Vassalboro, I have the chance to fish that lake extensively. In the 38 years my wife and I have summered there, we have caught plenty of fish of many various species: small and largemouth bass, white perch, yellow perch, chain pickerel, eels, to name a few.

Until 2009, we had not heard of anyone catching black crappie. But the catch has become quite common in the ensuing years.

The first question that comes to mind is whether the fish ladder at the dam on the Webber Pond Road (built in 2008) had anything to do with it. Probably not, but why, all of a sudden, are there crappies in the lake? That is the same question people residing at Togus Pond, in Augusta, have been asking, since the fish has made its appearance there also.

Black crappie, also known as calico bass, is a member of the sunfish family. These fish seem to fall in the love-hate category. Many people I have spoken with like the fish, saying they are a very tasty pan fish, while others put them in the same class as sunfish – what they describe as trash fish.

Despite that, they are a fairly popular fish although most of them have been artificially introduced. Black crappies are a schooling fish which leads to fast, intense fishing, an experience that many anglers prefer.

Adult crappies are typically around 6 – 12 inches long and weigh somewhere between two to three pounds. Typical crappie fisheries produce fish between 6 and 11 inches long, although crappies exceeding 14 inches and three pounds have been caught in Maine waters.

Their spawning season varies by location, due to the species’ great range. Water temperature at breeding is 58 – 68 degrees F. and occurs between April and June. Spawning takes place in a nest built by the male, who guards the eggs and young.

Closely resembling bass and sunfish species, which have 10 – 12 dorsal fin spines, crappies possess 6 – 8 dorsal fin spines. Body form is very deep and narrow, much like the sunfish. The coloration is silvery-olive to golden brown, with an irregular mosaic of dark black blotches.

Adults feed predominantly on smaller species, including the young of their own predators. They have diverse diets, however, including zooplankton, insects and crustaceans. This could be an added plus to Webber Pond. Over time, Webber Pond had experienced a tremendous improvement in water quality due, in part, to the return of the alewives, who also feed on zooplanktin. Zooplanktin feed on algae, and when alewives, in turn, ingest the zooplanktin and leave the waters in the fall, they take with them large quantities of algae. With the addition of the black crappie as an eater of zooplanktin, it can be interpreted as a potential for even more improvements.

By day, crappies tend to be less active and to concentrate around weed beds or submerged objects, such as logs and boulders. They feed especially at dawn and dusk, moving then into open water or approaching the shore. Because of their diverse diets, crappie may be caught in many ways, including casting light jigs, trolling with minnows or artificial lures, using small spinnerbaits or worm and bobbers. We catch them on red shad plastic worms, using the cast and retrieve method.

When we catch a few, we have kept our catch and fileted them. Rolling them in a batter of egg and corn meal, with some garlic pepper, we fry them in a pan, or cook them over an open fire. They make great fish filet sandwiches with cheese and lettuce.

Fishing for black crappies is most productive during the early morning or early evening while the air is relatively cool. They can be caught during the day, however, in more active waters. Be patient.

Black crappie are fairly common in the waters of southern Maine and in some of the Belgrade lakes.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

Name the only two pitchers in MLB history to record 300 strikeouts in a season in both the American and National leagues.

by Roland D. Hallee

A little while back someone inquired about fireflies and how they have been scarce as of late. Well, the other night, my wife and I were treated with a light show like we have not seen in a while. We were sitting enjoying the warm summer night when the area to our right became lighted up with dozens of them.

Fireflies are soft-bodied beetles commonly called fireflies, lightning bugs, or glowworms for their conspicuous production of light, mainly during twilight, to attract mates. Light production is thought to have originated as a warning signal the larvae were distasteful. This ability to create light was then co-opted as a mating signal and, in a further development, adult female fireflies mimic the flash pattern of the Photinus beetle to trap their males as prey.

Fireflies are found in temperate and tropical climates. Many live in marshes or in wet, wooded areas where their larvae have abundant sources of food. Although all known fireflies glow as larvae, only some species produce light in their adult stage, and the location of the light organ varies among species and between sexes of the same species. Fireflies have attracted human attention since classical antiquity; their presence has been taken to signify a wide variety of conditions in different cultures and is especially appreciated aesthetically in Japan, where parks are set aside for this specific purpose.

Fireflies are beetles and in many aspects resemble other beetles at all stages of their life cycle, undergoing complete metamorphosis. A few days after mating, a female lays her fertilized eggs on or just below the surface of the ground. The eggs hatch three to four weeks later.

The larvae feed until the end of the summer. Most fireflies hibernate as larvae. Some do this by burrowing underground, while others find places on or under the bark of trees. They emerge in the spring. The larvae of most species are specialized predators and feed on other larvae, terrestrial snails, and slugs. Some are so specialized they have grooved mandibles that deliver digestive fluids directly to their prey. The larval stage lasts from several weeks up to, in certain species, two or more years. The larvae pupate for one to two-and-a-half weeks and emerge as adults.

Light production in fireflies is due to the chemical process of bioluminescence. This occurs in specialized light-emitting organs, usually on a female firefly’s lower abdomen. Adults emit light primarily for mate selection.

Many fireflies do not produce light. Usually these species are diurnal, or day-flying. A few diurnal fireflies that inhabit primarily shadowy places, such as beneath tall plants or trees, are luminescent.

Like Fourth-of-July fireworks, cool swims on hot days, and lazy vacations, fireflies are a sign of summer. Many of us have cherished memories of spotting and catching them during warm summer evenings and running through fields that sparkled as if strewn with stars. But there are signs our
kids may not grow up with the same firefly memories we had. That’s because fireflies are disappearing from marshes, fields and forests all over the country – and all over the world. And if it continues, fireflies may fade forever, leaving our summer nights a little darker and less magical.

Why Are Fireflies Disappearing? Nobody knows for sure. But most researchers blame two main factors: development and light pollution.

Most species of fireflies thrive as larvae in rotting wood and forest litter at the margins of ponds and streams. And as they grow, they more or less stay where they were born. Some species are more aquatic than others, and a few are found in more arid areas—but most are found in fields, forests and marshes. Their environment of choice is warm, humid and near standing water of some kind—ponds, streams and rivers, or even shallow depressions that retain water longer than the surrounding ground.

The problem is that in America and throughout the world, our open fields and forests are being paved over, and our waterways are seeing more development and noisy boat traffic. As their habitat disappears under housing and commercial developments, firefly numbers dwindle. Logging, pollution and increased use of pesticides may also contribute to destroying firefly habitat and natural prey.

The next time you see a firefly, thank it for the memories, and hopefully the next generation will also be able to enjoy them.

* * * * * *

Regarding Scores & Outdoors column on Japanese Beetles in the July 10, 2025, issue of The Town Line.

Thank you for writing about Japanese beetles and warning folks not to use traps. Just this morning I was knocking them into a #10 can of water topped with a few drops of dish detergent. It keeps them from flying out of the can, then I strain then out for our ducks as a special treat. I discovered that the small Viriginia creeper vine on the north fence of our vegetable garden is attracting them away from the asparagus bed and other plants making them easier to catch. I now have what the Integrated Pest Management folks call trap cropping. I casually planted some zinnias in my community garden bed which is having the same effect – my flowers aren’t pretty, but the Japanese beetles are feasting there instead of the other’s folk’s plants.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

Who was the last Boston Red Sox player to be named Most Valuable Player in the World Series?

by Roland D. Hallee

For some reason, this year, I am getting more and more questions about poison ivy. Where is it? What does it look like? What do you do about it and how do you treat it?

All very legitimate questions.

As we all know, poison ivy and other members of its family can cause a lot of misery to humans should they make contact with the toxic plant.

Poison ivy, Toxicodendron radicans, is a member of the cashew family. It usually grows as a vine twining on tree trunks or crawls along the ground. It is generally found in all states in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains and southern Canada, specifically Québec, Ontario and Manitoba.

It may grow as a forest understory plant, although it is only somewhat shade tolerant. The plant is extremely common in suburban areas of New England. It can grow in many types of soil, and is not sensitive to soil moisture, although it does not grow in arid conditions.

The leaves of the poison ivy are red in the spring, turning to a shiny green later. Come fall, they turn yellow, red or orange. Each leaf is made up of three leaflets more or less notched at the edges. However, don’t let that be the determining factor. Some leaves have smooth edges. Two of the leaves appear opposite each other on the stem while the third one stands alone at the tip. Later in the season, clusters of poisonous, whitish, waxy looking berries will form.

Many people have difficulty identifying the plants because it can look like other plants, while, sometimes, other plants are mistaken as poison ivy.

Obviously, contact with the plant should be avoided. You can become infected simply by walking through the bush, taking off your shoes, and making contact with your skin.

Poison ivy in the U.S. is more common now than when Europeans first arrived in North America. The development of real estate adjacent to wild, undeveloped land caused the plant to spread into vast, lush colonies in these areas. Also, birds will eat the berries and transplant them on new areas along with their droppings. It’s also spread by other animals as the seeds remain viable after passing through the digestive system.

A study by researchers at the University of Georgia found that poison ivy is particularly sensitive to carbon dioxide levels, increasing in numbers due to a higher concentration in the atmosphere. Poison ivy’s growth has doubled since the 1960s, and could possibly double again as the carbon dioxide levels continue to rise.

What do you do once you’ve made contact and develop a skin rash. There is some hope. Efforts to destroy these plants by uprooting or by spraying chemicals have been somewhat ineffective. Caution: whatever you do, do not burn the plant. Its toxins will filter into the air, and if breathed, can cause irritation in the lungs. Not a very pleasant experience.

The oil on the leaves is known as urushiol. The urushiol compound in poison ivy is not meant as a defensive measure, but rather helps the plant retain water. It is frequently eaten by animals such as deer and bears. Statistically, about 15 percent to 30 percent of people have no allergic reaction to the urushiol. Fortunately, I fall in that category.

Once contact has been made, it takes some time for it to penetrate the skin and do damage. Before this happens, it is wise to wash the skin completely several times with plenty of soap and water. Some experts say that washing within the first hour may help limit the rash. Care should be taken not to touch any other parts of the body, for even tiny amounts of the oil will cause irritation. Also, wash the clothing immediately. If poisoning develops, the blisters and red, itching skin may be treated with dressings of calamine lotion, Epsom salts, or bicarbonate of soda. Dermatologists recommend a simple oatmeal bath and baking soda as a possible remedy. Scientists have developed a vaccine that can be injected or swallowed. But this is effective only if taken before exposure.

So, now we know a little more about poison ivy. But, always remember this: “Leaves of three, let it be.”

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

Have the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs ever met in a World Series?