Clearly, some of the nymphs have transformed into winged adults. Some have probably already flown away, making the patch appear less dense and less uniform. I had not expected this to happen so soon. I thought it might take a couple of weeks for them to go through this process, but instead it has taken only a few days. Below is a close up.
In the bottom left corner of this shot we see what I believe is the shed carapaces of two nymphs that have just emerged as adults. My guess is that the adults will now mate and the females will lay eggs around or on the tree where they will stay dormant until next Spring or Summer. I don't know how long the adults live, but I would imagine they die when the weather turns chilly, if not sooner. Once again, I feel so privileged to be able to witness this phenomenon in my own front yard.
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