‘Million Cicada Chorus’ Captured On Video By Princeton Resident

PRINCETON, NJ — The buzzword in Princeton these days is cicadas. The bugs have taken over the town and you can find them everywhere — on sidewalks and trees and colliding with cars and houses.

Princeton resident and Hightstown High School teacher Andrew Koontz has made a video on the emergence of the Brood X cicadas, to “remember this moment.” The video is piling up views on Facebook since it was posted.

In the video one can hear the distinctive hum of the cicadas — Koontz calls it the “million cicada chorus.”

Last weekend, the chirping got louder and incessant as the temperatures in Princeton soared.

“They seem to get more and more active depending on the temperature,” said Koontz. “It was a bit overbearing to go outside because they were really flying all over the place and the sound was incredibly loud.”

The cicada buzz can be very loud. According to researchers, it can reach 100 decibels, as loud as a Harley-Davidson motorcycle with straight pipes or a jackhammer running full bore into concrete or a lawnmower cutting through tall grass. Koontz’s video perfectly captures the Brood X mating ritual song across the township.

Koontz made the video for Hightstown High School’s student-run news program, The Ram Report Morning Show.

“We have been talking about the cicadas and their imminent arrival for several weeks. And although Hightstown in East Windsor hasn't seen too many cicadas, they really made an arrival in Princeton, where I live,” said Koontz.

Although he made the video for his students, Koontz decided to share it with others who were interested in this natural phenomenon.

“I thought was an interesting video and that’s the reason I did it. I posted it to Facebook, and people seem to enjoy it,” he said.

Koontz, who is also a Mercer County Commissioner, has been living in Princeton since 1992. He was in town when the cicada invasion of 2003 occurred. But this time around it’s different, he says.

“In 2004, I was just stunned by how many there were. But this time, just as my own personal experience, there seems to be more,” said Koontz.

The teacher isn’t the only one who thinks so. In fact, many are calling Princeton the “unofficial cicada capital of New Jersey.”

The bugs can be found all over town, their shells littering the streets and sidewalks, and the persistent buzz drowning out other sounds. But just a few miles away in neighboring towns like Lawrenceville and East Windsor the cacophonous sound is missing, and no cicadas are crawling out of the ground.

“I think it has to do with the fact that we're an older community,” said Koontz. “In my neighborhood, most of the housing dates back at least 100 years, and the trees are very established and older.”

Koontz says that many of the red-eyed bugs are now dropping dead and their bodies are “all over the place.”

“There's definitely a smell that is coming now,” he said.

But the experience of having cicadas take over Princeton, however inconvenient, is one that Koontz has enjoyed.

“We humans think of ourselves as the dominant species. But every 17 years, the town is taken over by cicadas, which is actually a wonderful thing to experience.”

Thank you for reading. Have a correction or news tip? Email sarah.salvadore@patch.com

Get breaking news alerts on your phone with our app. Download here. Sign up to get Patch emails so you don't miss out on local and statewide news.