Rachel Gustafson, an educator with the McHenry County Conservation District, holds a cicada on Sunday, June 2, as part of the Cicada Celebration at the Fox Bluff Conservation Area. (Janelle Walker)
By Janelle Walker | Shaw Local
As the McHenry County Conservation District staff was deciding where to host June’s Cicada Celebration, the Fox Bluff Conservation Area between Cary and Algonquin seemed like the perfect spot.
But the cicadas seem to disagree.
Not only does the park along the Fox River have a number of deciduous trees – needed for cicadas to feed on underground and lay their eggs on after emergence – there is also a good-sized parking lot needed for the visitors who were expected, said Rachel Gustafson, program coordinator with the conservation district.
But just like naturalists “don’t really know how [cicadas] know” when to emerge from the ground on a 17-year-cycle, district officials also don’t know precisely when or where the bugs will emerge. So far, staff has not found any members of the red-eyed, green-bodied 17-year cicada brood at Fox Bluff, or along many sites near the Fox River. Officials also don’t know why, Gustafson said.
According to staff who were with the district back in 2007, the last time the brood emerged, there were cicadas there, Gustafson said. But not yet this cycle.
“There is a whole corridor along the Fox River where they have not emerged,” Gustafson said.
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