Welcome to this issue of Stumped by Nature, where we notice nature lurking just beyond our screens, curate a list of outside-y events in Austin, and build community with other folks in the thick of the startup ecosystem.
In this week’s issue:
🪲 Cicadas
🌤️ Upcoming outdoors events
Let’s dig in!
-Nicole
PS. ATX Outsiders is our community where people get to know each other IRL outside each month. Join us!
Upcoming events:
Friday, July 31: Purple Martin Party: This is bird-centric.
Julia will be representing the Balinsky family at the Purple Martin Party info booths—you can/should show her this image and geek out over baby bird diets.
Sunday, August 2: Reverse Brain Rot: Our summer series with ATX Writing Club. An hour of reading + an hour of writing + Barton Springs dip optional.
Fair warning: last weekend’s RBR spun off a group birding text thread—these events come with the risk of solicited titmouse pics.Monday, August 10: Austin Reading Club: Soak into an hour of reading the book of your choice.
Partial stack of last Monday’s reads cheesing for the photo.
NATURE SPOTLIGHT
Ever feel the cyclical urge to emerge from a hole, tear off your clothes, and scream?
You’re not alone.
It’s totally natural.
Welcome to your cicada era.
You know those empty body husks you keep seeing on the side of buildings and midway up fences? And the sound of your tree erupting in a roar? Those are cicadas, aka Hemiptera, aka true bug.
In addition to apparently embodying the definition of bug, their universality continues in their urge to shed previous iterations of their lives, and also in their extreme inability to put their clothes in the hamper.
There are two main types of cicadas: annual and periodical.
Both annual and periodical cicadas have ecological benefits. They turn over soil, naturally prune trees, boost predator populations, and provide nutrients with their rotting bodies.
Central Texas indulges in an annual dog-day cicada, popping up from their underground tree-root-drinking lives to shed their exoskeletons and mate like their species depends on it.
Some pieces of the world experience 17-year periodical broods, which is potentially a remnant of Ice Age survival strategy. There are currently 15 recognized broods of periodical cicadas across the US.
Growing up in West Virginia, we had the distinct pleasure of welcoming Brood V in 1999. The internet says the brood contained billions or trillions of individual cicadas, with populations of up to 1.5 million cicadas per acre, and that after 17 years underground as nymphs, the cicadas emerged, matured, mated, and died.
Not all cicada deaths are created equally, and we made sure of that. In our pre-cell phone, suburban-without-the-urb childhood summer, my brother and I would use the mobs of bugs as opportunity to extend our, uh, tennis lessons. We’d take turns. One person would aggressively shake the trunk of the crab apple tree in our yard, and the other would either swing their racket meaningfully or get a face full of cicadas. When the bug flight frenzy subsided, we’d extract the carcasses from the racket webbing, regroup and regrip, and repeat. Oh, to be young, screen free, and violent.
The 2016 Brood V overlapped with a slice of mid-twenties peak wedding season, so a built in backdrop of nymphal exoskeletons. Romantic!
What’s their deal?:
Cicadas are described as stout and wedge-like, which is rude, but not unfair
Immature cicadas are called nymphs. They’re brown with strong front legs made for tunneling
Cicadas’ sense of time is calibrated to an internal clock, but likely oriented to the changes of the flow of fluids in tree roots
Cicada nymphs emerge from the ground (sometimes leaving an exit hole like a chimney), climb up vertical surfaces like tree trunks, fences, or your brick exterior. The skin on their back splits open, and, in true metal fashion, they pull themselves out of themselves. The crispy remains are the old exoskeleton called exuviae.
It’s crucial to emerge to the next stage—confines of their previous life can no longer hold them. Newly emerged adults pump fluids into their soft, crumpled wings, and this is a key stage in proper wing development so they can take flight
Added benefit: ditching the exoskeleton allows their piercing-sucking mouthparts to form into a new, functioning adult mouth that cannot bite people or eat solids.
Like aphids, cicadas have a liquid diet of xylem fluid from tree tissue and release the excess as liquid called honeydew. Which means an overhead cicada might squirt on you. Wide-brimmed hats are good.
Driveway evidence of claiming the next phase of the rest of its life
Getting intimate
You might have noticed cicadas are noisy.
We can guess why, right?
If your instinct was male cicada karaoke to attract a mate, you’re correct. Male cicadas possess a ribbed membrane on their abdomen that, when rapidly flexed, clicks the ribs hundreds of times a second, amplified by their hollow abdominal cavity. This built-in instrument is called a tymbal and can reach up to 100db, the equivalent of being 3 feet from a circular saw/being on a nightclub dance floor during peak hours/holding a baby in full witching hour.
The lady cicadas dig it, wanting the loudest and most rhythmic mate.
Fun fact: if you mow the lawn or use a power tool, you might attract female cicadas, who will flick their wings at you if your efforts please them.
Cicadas are highly promiscuous, with both sexes spreading their genetic chances of continuing their line. Because adult cicadas only live a few weeks, their main focus is reproduction. After mating, the male immediately resumes calling in the next potential mate. The female will lay hundreds of eggs in a V-shaped slit she’s cut into a tree branch, then get back in the game. Their species goal is to have such great numbers they overwhelm any predator’s chances of dulling millions of intent reproducers.
There’s a fungal STD that infects fewer than 5% of male cicadas, making them extremely sex-driven, despite the fungus causing their abdomen and genitalia to fall off. Apparently some people seek out these fungal-infected male cicadas to eat them for amphetamine in the fungus, but this is a very bad idea, according to scientists, common sense, and your mom.
The internet says you can disrupt this raucous fertility fest by playing sparrow sounds, shaking the offending tree limbs, or putting in some good earplugs.
Belly Business
While plague-like and in Biblical proportions, cicadas are not locusts. Locusts are crop-destroying grasshoppers. Cicadas are harmless, and solely devoted to sipping on tree juices and frolicking.
What eats cicadas? Almost anything with a mouth. They’re protein-rich, abundant, and can cause a tummy ache if consumed in massive quantities. The humans who eat them, especially in parts of Asia and Central America, incorporate them into modern recipes and compare the flavor and texture to shrimp.
It crossed my mind very briefly to include a few recipes and a challenge to bring your best cicada dish to our Purple Martin Party on July 31. I even read this article about cooking with cicadas during that thought experiment. And I’m landing firmly in the gulf between intellectually knowing that cicadas are a very reasonable dietary choice and being emotionally available for this cuisine.
That said, if you’d like to co-host a cicada harvest and cooking class, hit me up—I’m always looking to diversify chosen horrors for my therapist to unpack with me.
Are you cicada-eating curious?
If your speed is more interior design than adventurous eating, perhaps you will vastly improve your interior design with cicada drawer pulls?
In solidarity with cicadas and the mission to survive your own dog days, there are very relatable reasons to strip down to just your fleshy parts, over-index on arm days, and burrow into cooler layers of the earth. See you periodically when we all emerge.
ELECTION SEASON
It’s time to celebrate your favorite tree.
TreeFolks is accepting nominations for the 2026 Tree of the Year through this Friday.
A 2025 nominated tree
Categories include Large Tree, Small Tree, Schoolyard Tree, Story Tree, Unique Tree.
Tree criteria:
You gotta be in awe of it
In Austin
On public property/publicly accessible
Not already a crowned victor
Prizes include a cookie and a gift card. What more could we possibly want.
UPCOMING EVENTS
🗓️ July 23: Summer UV Night Walk: blacklight flashlights, glow-in-the-dark bingo, glowing mushrooms
🗓️ July 23: Chocolate Alchemy: Craft & Technique: bean-to-bar learning
🗓️ July 23: The Notebook floating movie night, with suspended judgment on the healthiness of the relationship
🗓️ July 23: The Drop-In: leave your sweat imprints on the Long Center lawn
🗓️ July 24: Pitch and Run ATX: surely there will be a breeze
🗓️ July 25: The Board Walks: with a post-walk-taco option if you play your cards right
🗓️ July 25: Orchid Mycology Walk: with promise to learn about this orchid parasitizing fungi instead of photosynthesizing
🗓️ July 25: Kayak Trash Cleanup: great reason to get out on the water
🗓️ July 25: Moondance Outdoor Concert Series at Cibolo Nature Center: soak up some oak-dappled moonlight
🗓️ July 25: Austin Ruck Club: real question: can you wash a ruck?
🗓️ July 28: Early Birds in the Garden: Actual birds. Real garden. Truly early.
🗓️ July 30: Butterfly Walk in the Garden: prime opportunity to add some whimsy to your life
🗓️ July 31: Purple Martin Party: I’m piggybacking on an official Travis Audubon event. No trespassing required. No cicada eating required.
🗓️ August 2: Reverse Brain Rot: I’m hosting. Read/write, swim optional.
🗓️ August 10: Austin Reading Club: I’m hosting. Get those pages in, and peek at what other folks are reading.
🗓️ Through August 15: Singin’ in the Rain at Zilker Hillside Theater
That’s all for this week!
In the meantime, I hope you leave behind the crusty exterior of lives that no longer fit you.
-Nicole
OPTIONAL SIDE QUESTS
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🪵 I also write essays: this one is about witnessing a bison harvest.
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