Where are all the cicadas?

My husband is very into insects. Thanks to him I got the photo in this post, back in 2015. He noticed the metamorphosis happening just yards away from us and we got up close to observe. But not too close, to give it its privacy as such! I used zoom to capture it on film. I'm delighted to have an excuse to use this photo. But sad about the reason; we have not heard the cicadas singing in our area of Saitama yet.

We've been talking about it at home. Then today, I noticed that the hashtag "空梅雨と急激な暑さ", "dry rainy season and extreme heat", is trending on X in Japan. A lot of the tweets related to that hashtag are about how late the cicada are to sing to this year. Many people in varying prefectures have said that they have not yet heard cicada sing this year. Thankfully @helloalissa has heard them cry in her part of Japan. So hopefully they are just late in Saitama and other parts of Japan.

But there is also the fear that the dry rainy season and extreme heat has resulted in them failing to emerge. Some experts believe that the soil was actually too cool initially and is now too hot and that the cicada may have missed their timing to emerge from the soil. The lack of rain can also play part. The larvaea may not have got enough nutrition this year to get they energy they need to emerge. 

I hope that they are just delayed in emerging. Its hard to imagine a summer without the cicada song. And it has greater implications for the future of nature with such intense global warming. Have you heard the cicada sing yet this year?