Outdoors -- the beginning of the end

Cicadas are gloomy things, almost as gloomy as crickets.
When they come out and start their whirring, you know the summer is on its downhill trend.
Actually, you already knew that because if you have been watching the clock, you know that sunrise is coming a couple minutes later now, and sunset a couple minutes sooner.
Last year was supposed to be the 17-year cicada thing, IINM, but it was relatively quiet.  I remember the last time they came out, there were great whirring waves of sound passing through the neighborhood.
Maybe they got roasted in the ground in June when we had that record heat.
Anyway, I heard the first ones last week.  Or I heard them for the first time.
I wonder if mockingbirds eat them.  Sure, a cicada can be about the size of a mockingbird's head.  But almost nothing scares a mockingbird.
Since the new chick is being raised in my front hedge, I'll keep an eye out.

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