Cropped, composited.

While visiting family in North Carolina last weekend I took a morning walk in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The air was very thick with humidity and much richer is all aspects from the high mountain desert air of Utah. The cicadas were singing everywhere and it brought back good memories of living in the Southern United States for many decades of my life.

While heading back to the house I noticed a cicada on its back struggling to upright itself to no avail. Being familiar with many types of insects which have been on their backs for any amount to time, it may take a while for them to recover. Sometimes they don't. This cicada seemed to begin recovering after a minute of two. It was very calm. My assumption is that it had an impact injury from a passing vehicle in the neighborhood, hitting a powerline or perhaps flying into the mailbox near to where it was found.

The image dose show very slight damage to its dorsal thorax shell below the left eye. Not deep but probably what knocked it out of flight and put it on its back on the road. After a few minutes of "walking it off" in my hand it seemed to get more active so instead of launching it into to the air I let it crawl onto a pine tree trunk to recover further or consider its fate. This was a female, lacking the sound mechanism - the tymbal - for singing to the ladies.