So I have not been this side of the pond long enough to witness one of these events. I am getting some conflicting info here. So this 17 year cycle .. they are locusts right not crickets and after a couple weeks its all over for another 17 years ? And if the are locusts, I better eat my salad now I am guessing before they munch it down to the ground ?

Get chickens problem solved whatever they are.

They're called Cicada
https://www.cicadamania.com/where.html

Just heard about that on the radio, the sound of them can reach up to over 100 decibels

Cicadas.

17 year cycle. When they emerge , you will see them everywhere. Noisy , poor flying skills , will bump into everything. Very noisy as they emerge to mate. After mating , and laying eggs they die. Eggs hatch and the nymphs will go under ground and the feed on roots of trees feeding on sap. 17 years later it repeats again.

Had them a few years ago here , next emerge in 2030 in my area.

IF the critters you are hearing/seeing are indeed 17 year locusts, they are a large headed insect with multiveined wings and sing a lot. Each generation takes many years to live through their various life forms and lives as an adult(what they are now if you hear them singing loudly) for a period in the summer before mating, laying eggs and dying. HOWEVER, there are many more generations stacked up behind this one so the next generation will become adult NEXT summer and do its best to repeat. The 17 year name is likely not very accurate. There is lots of bad science/folklore about these insects and their close relatives.

When there are big hatches the buzz they make will last 24/7 for weeks on end. You're a southerner now Scuba. This is one critter we don't fry for eatin'.

Edit: If you had come to shore in Louisiana the eatin' rule may not apply. I reckon those Cajuns might have a blackened cicada recipe. They'll eat just about anything.

When I lived in Illinois both the 13 year and 17 year cicadas came out one year, and it was like a plague of biblical proportions. They were absolutely everywhere. Probably billions of them. If you went on a walk at night, they sidewalks would be covered with the babies fresh out of the ground crawling to find a tree to climb up. During the day the adults would fly everywhere, theyd get into your home and car and everything. The lab loved it, he'd eat so many that he's puke. Hed find them in the grass and crunch them up and it was hilarious to hear then buzzing around inside his mouth as he chewed. It became a game for him to hunt up as many as he could.

There's a 13 and 17 year cycle hatches plus an annual cicada. Next year will be a 17 year hatch in TN and 24 for the 13

Flying crayfish gumbo anyone ??

Turkey hatchling survival rates go up quite a bit on the years when the cicadas emerge. Great source of protein for the wild turkeys and other critters as well.

I wonder if there are any coyote baits with a cicada base?

Cicadas reek really bad when opened up. Squashing one will clear a room. Good luck eating any!

We have 'em every summer in WI. Some years we see a couple dozen all summer. Some years there's a half dozen in every tall tree and it's pretty deafening. Never seen the thousands the Southerners are talking about. That many singing at once would make quite a racket!

Probably not any commercial ones, at least not from major lure makers. To have enough cicadas to last between hatches would get expensive. I'd like to see Hal and Paul running around with butterfly nets all summer catching locusts and loading them into freezer trucks.

One of the fun things about the periodical hatches is when you catch one, they're very good missiles. Theyll fly straight on the initial direction for at least 20ft

There's also annual cicada species.

Another thing that I've observed and has recently been confirmed by a study out of Texas. If you have a site populated by a large numbers of white and post oaks you could see an influx of copperheads when cicadas emerge. Reason being is cicadas feed on the roots of these trees and a large emergence is food to copperheads.

Great to use for fishing Scuba.

There are different species. A 17 year version. A 4 year version. Once a year version. Etc etc etc. In the mid to late 80s they were everywhere on top of eachother that summer.

cicadas typically happen in older neighborhoods or places that never get plowed.

they are worst on cycle years but some before and after and always a few around

on a cycle years they are so thick they can die in such numbers as they make the road slippery with their wings .

Lake Geneva WI had them Bad in the old neighborhoods in the early 90s

they take adult form from their many years in nymph larval form fly /jump breed lay eggs and die in a matter of a few weeks.

they don't bite and they really are not crop damaging in the adult stage.

they live in the soil as nymphs for years , some hatch every rear but the 13-17 year brood cycle which is not the same year for all places is supposed to be this year for many places.

I have been wondering about the increased use of lawn sprays that kill all insects and how that will effect the Brood year.

my neighborhood had a small brood year about 2006-2007 I don't recall they year exactly it will be interesting to see how it is this year we get a few every year.

Looks like I will have a bunch of them then as none of my property has ever been plowed and I have a bunch of oak trees on it . Some loud times ahead then by the looks of it. Beats the mixed " live" music from the bars on the shore when the wind was wrong I guess.