You know it’s gonna be a hot one…

when you hear the cicadas singing before 9am. Yup, it sure is hot out there, and the cicadas have begun to emerge from the ground, climb up into the trees, and announce their availability on the original dating app: known by many as mating call. I don’t have a picture for you yet, but I’ll be keeping my eyes open. There are supposed to be 9 cicada species in Wisconsin, and I don’t know which one we’re hearing now, but I read that “the one most frequently encountered is Tibicen canicularis, sometimes called the Dogday Harvestfly.“

Cicadas are not the only critters emerging these days. Here’s another, a frog just out of the water still sporting a little bit of its tadpole tail. This one is sitting on a lily pad on the river, and I’m afraid I can’t tell you exactly what type it is because it appears that the distinguishing features, such as ridges down the back or around the ear haven’t formed yet.

Below are the remains of yet another emergence, and this time it appears to be the empty exoskeleton from the final molt of a mayfly.

Here’s a female ebony jewelwing damselfly (Calopteryx maculata), who we first saw back at the start of June, and this time she looks like she’s up to something, but I’m not sure what. She’s supposed to lay her eggs “in the soft stems of aquatic plants“, not on this leaf. Maybe this is just a “dry” run, eh?

Keeping with our theme, below is a newly emerged mushroom, and this time I’m gonna go with Fairy Ring Mushroom (Marasmius oreades), despite the fact that there were no other mushrooms visible in the lawn at the time. MushroomExpert.com explains “the ring created by Marasmius oreades is often indistinct, and can’t always serve as a way to identify the mushroom.”

One more. The ox-eye sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides) has just opened for business, and I found a few on the steep slope from the river up to the beer garden, which is also now open for business.

Finally, check out the fun these krazy kids look to be having going over the Estabrook falls. Good for them, right?

That’s it for today. Stay cool out there and tune in tomorrow for more exciting revelations.