Photo by Chris Bosak
A cicada emerges from its nymph exoskeleton on a tree in Danbury, Conn., summer 2017.

This one was all Will.

I was throwing the football around with Will, my 10-year-old, when he suddenly stopped by a tree and said: “Dad, come check this out.” He had found a cicada emerging from its nymph exoskeleton. In all my years, I’ve never seen this before. I’ve seen dozens of exoskeletons lying round but long after the cicada had emerged and started making its trademark noises from the trees.

This was also like no other cicada I had ever seen before. To be clear, I’m no expert on cicadas. Far from it. But I’ve seen plenty of them over the years. This one had green wings, really cool aqua-green wings. And green legs to boot. Perhaps they will change to clear wings after it is in the world a little longer, but at that moment anyway, it had green wings.

Will took a bunch of photos with my phone while I rushed for my camera and macro lens. His photos came out pretty well, too. I’ll include one at the bottom.

Nature has surprises around every corner. Sometimes it takes a 10-year-old to find them.

Photo by Chris Bosak
A cicada emerges from its nymph exoskeleton on a tree in Danbury, Conn., summer 2017.

Here’s Will’s iPhone shot. Not bad.

Photo by Will Bosak
A cicada emerges from its nymph exoskeleton on a tree in Danbury, Conn., summer 2017.