During an afternoon stroll around Morton Arboretum, near Chicago, Maria Malayter’s Apple Watch buzzed twice with an unusual notification. The screen warned her of a “loud environment” with sound levels reaching 90 decibels as cicadas chorused on the treetops.

Exposure to such levels for over 30 minutes can cause permanent hearing damage, hence the watch notification. Yet Malayter, and many others, have visited the arboretum in recent weeks seeking the cicada songs, and a reminder of childhood.

“Cicada concert!” she said gleefully. “And it’s a loud day, I heard.”

The mating calls, which in unison can reach decibels comparable to a jet engine or lawnmower, are perhaps one of the insects’ most recognizable features. For some, it’s overwhelming, and annoying.

But others find the din from this spring’s historic emergence to be a soothing lullaby, an offbeat jam session or a scientific peculiarity worth traveling to hear firsthand. From downstate Illinois to Lake County, enthusiasts, artists and researchers have spread out far and wide to immerse themselves in the intense and diverse songs of cicadas.

The Northern Illinois Brood emerges every 17 years, and the Great Southern Brood comes out every 13 years. In central Illinois, both broods have emerged adjacent to one another for the first time since 1803, presenting a unique opportunity to compare their tunes.

Malayter had been hoping to hear them closer to home in her Aurora backyard. But the city cut down her trees as part of a strategic removal program to curb the spread of emerald ash borers, an invasive and destructive beetle species.

“I was wondering if I’d see any (cicadas), and there were none,” she said. So she grabbed a friend and headed east. “I started driving, and I could hear them through my car windows.”

People from neighboring and faraway states, even from other countries and continents, have also traveled to Illinois to hear cicadas sing. In and around Springfield, tourists hailed from Japan, Belgium and Ireland, according to the city’s travel and tourism office.

Visitors at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, about 25 miles west of downtown Chicago, have come from Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, California, Germany and Canada. A father-daughter duo road-tripping from Madison was delighted to catch the midafternoon cacophony at the arboretum after an earlier pit stop in Lake Geneva, where they said cicadas were only about half as loud.

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