Building the road at Amalyn Bethesda (former WMAL site)

 

Construction continues on at the Amalyn Bethesda housing project (at the site of the former WMAL broadcast towers).  You can now clearly see the path of the road  that will connect Greyswood Road and Greentree Road. The road itself will be in the portion of dirt that is about 6 inches lower than the rest (on the left).  Greyswood Rd is just behind the construction equipment in the center of the photo.

One standing and one fallen concrete monoliths with construction equipment in the background.  As far as I can tell, they are not full of stars.  They are the footings for one of the radio transmitter towers that used to be located at this site, most of each of them was buried under the ground with only the top couple of feet exposed. 

 A number of pieces of construction equipment parked in the field near Greyswood Road. In the foreground is a large concrete monolith that was one of the footings for the now-removed radio transmitter towers.

Demolition of the former Ourisman car dealership

 The long-vacant Ourisman car dealersship on Motor City Drive up by the Home Depot and Montgomery Mall has finally been demolished.  The plan is to put apartments on this site.  The building is fully down and there are just a few bits of metal girders left

 Here is how it looked when I last took a picture of it in December of 2020.

Cicada learners permit

 Cicadas may have just emerged, but they spent seventeen years underground. That means they are old enough to drive!  I took this one to get it's learners permit last week even though I doubt it will live the nine months required to get it's provisional license.

Clearing trees for the road at Amalyn Bethesda

 One of the first things that is being done for the Amalyn Bethesda housing development is to connect Greentree Rd and Greyswood Rd. They have started clearing trees at the end of Greentree Rd to allow for this work to start.

 Here is how Greentree road looks now. All the trees and brush has been removed.  

 This is from the field, looking at the dead-end of Greentree Road. Prior to this, the trees and brush were dense enough that you couldn't see Greentree from here.

 

 For comparison, here is how the end of Greentree Road looked earllier this spring.

Young Love (cicada style)

 "In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." (Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

Now that the cicada's have been out a little while, and the racket they make has grown increasingly loud, it should come as no surprise that the singing is starting to pay off, at least for this lucky fellow and equally lucky lass.  They are especially lucky that no one stepped on them while they lay in ecstasy on the sidewalk.

After spending today listening to the cicadas, I was a bit surprised tonight to not hear them.

Little Falls Trail almost back to normal

 

They have been working on replacing the bridges on Little Falls Trail in Bethesda, MD since last fall, but the end is in sight now.  The bridges themselves have been open for a while, although one of them still doesn't have a ramp up to it.  They are in the process (and have been for a couple of weeks) of removing the thick layer of mulch they put down over the trail to protect it.  The very end of the trail, near Albermarle Street still has a big pile of mulch and some heavy duty wood planks but the rest has been cleared.

The trail here used to have about a foot of wood mulch over it, all has been removed and the trail swept clean. There is still some construction equipment parked along the trail.

After the clean up, they relandscape the area. Relandscaping might be a strong word for what they are doing, but after carefully cleaning up all the mulch and clearing a couple of feet on each side of the trail, they are putting straw down over the bare dirt.  I suspect they put grass seed under the straw.

Not everything is complete, there are a couple of places where the trail has been torn up and needs to be replaced, primarily at Albermarle St, the ramp leading to one of the bridges, and the area where the rebuilt a drainage creek that goes under the trail.  After that, everything will be back to normal, but as of now, as long as you don't require handicap accessibility it is fully usable.

A couple of Cicada videos

Here are a couple of videos I have taken of the cicada attack.

This first video is a time-lapse of a Brood X cicada molting on a blade of grass.  This time-lapse was taken over a period of about 2.5 hours one night. One picture every 15 seconds.  Where a cicada walks over the emerging one and where the emerging cicada flips so it is holding onto its shell I have duplicated each photo 4 times to slow it down and make it easier to see what is happening.

 

This next video isn't a time lapse, it is just a view of about 20 cicada nymphs crawling aimlessly through the grass.  I was taking a timelapse of a molting cicada at night so had a couple of lights turned on, it appears the nymphs are attracted to light.

Some Brood X Cicada Photos

 

The cicadas are out in force and for the past week or so I've been watching them and taking pictures.  Here are a few of my favorites.

 

These Brood X cicadas have been underground for 17 years, but now they are climbing out and onto trees and plants. Once out, they do a final molt to their winged form.  They will only live for about a month longer during which time they will mate and lay eggs.

Timelapse of cicadas molting

 

I took this timelapse video of a couple of cicada nymphs  molting and their wings expanding. One cicada starts molting then another climbs on top of it and also starts molting.

A newly molted Cicada

 

I took this photo of a newly molted cicada a couple of nights ago.  Last week they were only coming out some evenings, but this week it has been every night, and each night there are more and more of them.  They have only been emerging in the warmer areas, ground that is in shade for much of the day still hasn't released it's hordes.