I first came across cicadas when I worked in Japan. I can remember walking down a road in central Tokyo shortly after I arrived and wondering “What is that noise?” I’d never heard anything like it in my life. It was incredibly loud – like someone screaming and using a drill at the same time! I eventually figured out it was coming from the trees and that some kind of small creature must be responsible for the racket. Later, I wasn’t all that surprised to learn that cicadas are, in fact, amongst the loudest of all insects. Sara is absolutely right: cicadas are loud, really loud.
