Season

• From late April through June 2024, the largest brood of 13-year cicadas, known as Brood XIX, will co-emerge with a midwestern brood of 17-year cicadas, Brood XIII.
• A co-emergence like this of two specific broods with different life cycles happens only once every 221 years.
• For about four weeks, scattered wooded and suburban areas will ring with cicadas’ distinctive whistling, buzzing and chirping mating calls.
• Once the eggs hatch, new cicada nymphs will fall from the trees and burrow back underground, starting the cycle again.
• It’s no accident that the scientific name for periodical 13- and 17-year cicadas is Magicicada, shortened from “magic cicada.”

Ancient visitors

• Molecular analysis has shown that about 4 million years ago, the ancestor of the current Magicicada species split into two lineages.
• The resulting three lineages are the basis of the modern periodical cicada species groups, Decim, Cassini and Decula.
• The sudden appearance of so many insects reminded them of biblical plagues of locusts, which are a type of grasshopper.
• During the 19th century, notable entomologists such as Benjamin Walsh, C.V. Riley and Charles Marlatt worked out the astonishing biology of periodical cicadas.

Acting in unison

• This increases their chances of accomplishing their key mission aboveground: finding mates.
• While periodical cicadas largely come out on schedule every 17 or 13 years, often a small group emerges four years early or late.
• Early-emerging cicadas may be faster-growing individuals that had access to abundant food, and the laggards may be individuals that subsisted with less.

Will climate change shift Magicicada clocks?

• As glaciers retreated from what is now the U.S. some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, periodical cicadas filled eastern forests.
• Today there are 12 broods of 17-year periodical cicadas in northeastern deciduous forests, where trees drop leaves in winter.
• Because periodical cicadas are sensitive to climate, the patterns of their broods and species reflect climatic shifts.
• Although periodical cicadas prefer forest edges and thrive in suburban areas, they cannot survive deforestation or reproduce successfully in areas without trees.

• In the late 19th century, one Brood (XXI) disappeared from north Florida and Georgia.
• Climate change could also have farther-reaching effects.
• As the U.S. climate warms, longer growing seasons may provide a larger food supply.
• This may eventually change more 17-year cicadas into 13-year cicadas, just as past warming altered Magicicada neotredecim.
• We hypothesize that this was due to climate warming.

John Cooley receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society. Chris Simon has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, the National Geographic Society and the New Zealand Marsden Fund.

• Bruce Pascoe is best known for his natural history, Dark Emu, which argues that systems of pre-colonial food production and land management in Australia have been dramatically understated.
• At last count, the book had sold at least 360,000 copies of the original edition – and many more in the form of adaptations, translations, children’s and overseas editions.
• Since the publication of Dark Emu in 2014, Pascoe has had to endure extraordinary public scrutiny, as well as vehement attacks on his personal and professional reputation.

• In light of the last ten years, Black Duck: A Year at Yumburra is a healing and necessary book.
• The farm is a deliberate project designed to test, extend and materialise some of the ideas put forward in Dark Emu.
• The meaning of Yumburra, Pascoe tells us, is Black Duck, the “supreme spiritual being of Yuin country”.

Six seasons on the farm

• Through more than 60 subtitled journal entries, accompanied by numerous photographs and sketches, Pascoe charts the activities of his days.
• These include labouring chores on the farm, visits paid and received (both there and interstate), thoughts, visions and experiments with food and agriculture, and memories and reflections on relationships reaching far back into childhood.
• Pascoe describes life on the farm as solitary at times, but also active.
• Daily farm work includes clearing watercourses or fixing tools and machinery, and at these times his friendships with the nonhuman are forged in both subtle and overt ways.

• Despite their vigilance, the Spur-winged Plover loses a lot of chicks to eagles and foxes […] Their calls are ever-present on the farm.
• If the horses gallop, an eagle passes, a dingo wakes or a car arrives, you hear about it instantly.
• You can’t make friend with Birran Durran Durran because everything is a threat in its opinion.
• Despite their vigilance, the Spur-winged Plover loses a lot of chicks to eagles and foxes […] Their calls are ever-present on the farm.

• There is a sense of time moving on through the seasons.
• Yumburra, too, was affected by that event, leading one of the farm workers to rename a whole section of the farm “Apocalypse Valley” in the aftermath.
• “The unbridled pleasure I used to take in the forest, waters and shores is now tinged with sadness and dread.”

A true storyteller

• The author is respectfully light on detail on these matters, but the reader is left in no doubt about their deep importance to him.
• Pascoe’s authorial style sometimes comes across as a touch too lackadaisical and larrikin-esque, drifting as if unmoored.
• And yet, he’s a true storyteller – and no sooner have you hesitated, than he reels you in again, and has you marvelling with him at the grandchildren’s handstands and cartwheels on the paddle board on the river, or at the cunning of the dingo pair who’ve taken out a young Buru (kangaroo) by gripping him by the ears and drowning him.
• I assume it was the same animal because she made a great point of making sure I was watching her expertise.
• It might be a romantic thought or a wish for longevity of a friend but, whatever the case, I enjoy the personality.“

• Sometimes Pascoe quotes from her journal entries, discrete and beautifully rendered observations of wildlife on her own nearby property.
• But as I was reading, I found myself wondering how else Lyn contributed to the book, and on what terms.

Connection to culture and Country

• For anyone with lingering doubts about Pascoe’s commitment and connection to Country, this book will set them straight.
• It is a quiet, funny, warm and insistent call to return to and care for Country.

Julienne van Loon has been a recipient of funding from Creative Australia, Creative Victoria and ArtsWA.

• Hosted in the home city of the Miami Padel Club, the first-round championship play will occur from April 2 to April 14 at the Ultra Club in Miami.
• The Miami Padel Club is wholly owned by Captiva Verde.
• The Miami Padel Club is the only public share trading company in the entire world of Padel.
• With 25 million active players around the world, all of these players now have an opportunity to become a Miami Padel Club (Captiva Verde) shareholder.

• The funds raised at the annual event, to be held on Wednesday, August 14, 2024, aim to end poverty in Northeast Wisconsin.
• JJ Watt has achieved numerous accolades and established himself as one of the NFL’s greatest defensive players of all time.
• U.S. Venture is excited to partner with Watt because of his enormous philanthropy efforts following Hurricane Harvey and the JJ Watt Foundation.
• “I am honored to be part of the U.S. Venture Open this year,” said JJ Watt.