Insects Are Making Their Presence Known Around Boone Lake

ORIGINAL: www.wcyb.com

By Rebecca Rogers

May 20, 2012

Residents living near Boone Lake are noticing a hum in the air.

It’s the sound of cicadas - a bug, about the size of your thumb, that seems to have found a new home around Boone Lake.

Residents say the bugs have been chirping for about two weeks now, and they are the loudest in the evening.

People say the sound is so loud, it’s hard to believe it's coming from such a small insect.

"I thought at first it was some kind of construction they were doing,” says Shawn Bugher, who lives near Boone Lake. “And then I listened for a minute in the night and I was like, I know they ain't working at night, and I thought, ‘Is it time for the locusts to come out?’”

Here’s what else we've learned.

Experts say parts of Smyth County, Virginia and Wise County, Virginia could be seeing what's called seventeen year and thirteen year cicadas this summer.

We’re told “dog day” cicadas come out every summer.