The sound of an electric drill sounds a lot like a courtship call.

The cicada season brings noisier outdoor activities, extra yard work to protect your trees, and even some potential new decorations. All of this is more or less expected, but the Brood X cicada that emerged from the ground 17 years later has another side effect that you may not be ready for: swarms of passionate insects are obsessed with your power tools. 

This is real. The loud hum of a lawn mower, angle grinder, or electric drill is very similar to the mating call of a cicada. It can confuse insects and cause them to crowd around construction workers or gardeners.

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This may seem strange, but it makes a lot of sense. The cicada's call is as loud as a lawn mower, and it sounds like the high pitch of a motor used in ordinary electric tools. This makes poor mistakes easy to confuse. "Cicadas are attracted by vibrating machinery," explained cicada enthusiast YouTuber Cicada Mania. "That could be a saw, an electric drill, a lawnmower, anything that can mechanically vibrate. The cicada thinks it is a cicada, or a group of cicadas, so all other cicadas will be attracted by it." 

If you don't want to be swarmed by bugs while trying to do garden work, you have a few options. Cicada Mania recommends arranging work in the yard around the baby bird's schedule-getting up early at dawn to use tools and noisy equipment, when the weather is colder and the bugs are less active. Cicadas also tend to spend their nights on trees, which also makes night work a viable option. 

Of course, as long as you don't mind looking like a walking laundry basket, you can also put caution (and your dignity) behind and put on the wearable, insect-resistant WalkingPod Mesh.