Come on a Cicada Safari with Me!

If you were in New Jersey in the summer of 2021, you probably remember all the hullabaloo around Brood X, the periodical emergence of 17-year cicadas in the genus Magicicada. I had to drop the scientific name because—look. at. it. It’s amazing. Magi—as in “a sorcerer”—and cicada, the large homopterous insect. A sorcerer because how the heck can they disappear for 16 years before emerging again!? Nature, man… nature.

In 2021, I even wrote an article about cicadas—less about the Magicicadas, since they were really emerging much farther north of us (the closest good densities were up in the Princeton area), and more about the annual cicadas, which are still totally amazing, and make up a significant proportion of the daily soundscape during the summer. Well, guess what? This year we’re expecting a new crop of Magicicadas, and they’re going to get about as close as they ever get to Cape May. So now I can finally write about them.

This year, cicada researchers are expecting Brood XIV, a brood that last emerged in 2008. That summer, my wife and I were preparing to welcome our first child into the world. I have no recollection of cicadas from that summer. 2008 seems like a lifetime ago. I was scrambling to finish up my PhD at Rutgers, my wife was five months pregnant, and we were living in a caretaker’s cottage on the property of the Hutcheson Memorial Forest in Somerset, New Jersey. If I think back, I can recall finding cicada exoskeletons clinging to trees in the forest during our time there—but I can’t say for certain when during our five-year tenure that happened.

No matter. Fast forward to 2021 and we are now a family of four with two awesome kids, and we hear about the Brood X extravaganza brewing up the road in Princeton. We joined our friends, packed the kids into the car, and drove north to see what all the hype was about.

Well, let me tell you—it blew all our expectations out of the water. I mean seriously, even The Bent Spoon, a favorite local ice cream parlor, was making Cicada Ice Cream with real cicadas (and was sold out by the time we got there). The experience was amazing. The sheer volume of cicadas created a deafening soundscape that rippled and flowed through the air as soon as we entered the neighborhood around the university. We went for a hike and encountered thousands of cicadas—some emerging from holes in the ground at the base of trees, some climbing up trunks in the final stage before metamorphosis into flighted adults, and others, the vast majority, as fully-winged adults either perched on vegetation or flying around above us—sometimes through our legs. Did I mention it was amazing?

We noticed the birds thought so, too. We even discovered a few rare-for-there species, like Summer Tanager, feasting on what appeared to be a limitless resource. Great Crested Flycatchers were smacking cicadas against branches and choking them down one after another. It was a scene, let me tell you.

So, when I heard there was a chance that we could be seeing some of these same players showing up in the summer of 2025, I figured you should know about it.

Seventeen years since the last emergence. From a time in my life when a child was only something we discussed in conjunction with nursery colors or baby name lists to now: an almost-17-year-old junior in high school visiting colleges and thinking about her path beyond our familiar bounds. That whole time—and even a bit longer—the cicadas born in the summer of 2008 have been underground. They crawled as nymphs from the site of their egg-laying down into the soil, where they’ve been feeding on the xylem of tree roots ever since. And now, in 2025, they’re planning to emerge.

So, what exactly is Brood XIV, and why should you care?

Well, for one, it’s a 17-year periodical cicada brood, which means all the individuals emerging this year have been biding their time underground since 2008. They’ve been quietly sipping root juice for nearly two decades—no big deal—only to emerge en masse for a few wild weeks of above-ground life: molt, mate, lay eggs, and die. That’s it—17 years of subterranean silence for a summer of sensory overload.

Brood XIV is one of the bigger broods, and this year it’s expected to blanket parts of southern and central New Jersey. While we’re not smack in the middle of the action down here in Cape May, we’re close—closer than we were for Brood X in 2021. If you’re willing to hop in the car and drive an hour north—say, toward Belleplain, Atlantic County, or maybe the Pine Barrens—there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself in the middle of a full-blown emergence.

And if you haven’t experienced a Magicicada emergence before, let me say this: it’s not just about the noise or the novelty. It’s about witnessing something ancient and almost mythic. There’s this feeling—standing in the middle of it—that you’re seeing a secret part of the natural world most people never notice. That below the surface, all around us, there’s this hidden, patient life quietly waiting for its moment.

That moment is now.

So, I’m inviting you to come on a little safari with me. This early summer, grab your binoculars, your kids, or just your curiosity, and head north into the woods. Find a stand of mature trees, listen for the buzz, and just soak it in. You don’t need any fancy equipment. You just need to show up and pay attention.

Because in 2042, when Brood XIV emerges again, we’ll all be 17 years older. And who knows what our lives will look like then? But if you go now, you’ll carry that sound with you—the magic of Magicicada, the pulse of the season, the reminder that we’re all part of some longer rhythm, whether we know it or not. 

Want to learn more about Brood XIV? Check out Cicada Mania here: https://tinyurl.com/broodXIV