If you've been outside lately, this is what you're probably hearing.

It's the mating call of the cicada known as the loudest insect on Earth.

We can attest to it here.

Now, from a University of Kentucky entomologist about the brood that's making this deafening sound.

And when he says all the noise will finally die down.

When we talk about brood of cicadas, they are all periodical cicadas.

There are some that are 17 year brood and there are some that are 13 year broods.

The brood is just a way of talking about the different ones that emerge in different calendar years.

Not all of the periodical cicadas have a, so to speak, their eggs in one basket.

So they all come across the United States at the same time.

They're going to come out in these different calendar years, and we just separate those out with these Roman numerals.

We're in the midst of the brood 14 emergence here in central and eastern Kentucky.

These are periodical cicadas that have been below ground for the last 17 years, and now they make their triumphant return above ground.

We started to see this towards the end of April, the start of May.

They had a little bit of stutter stepping because there was some cool weather and a lot of wet weather, and a delayed some of the emergence from coming out.

So I'd say we're about halfway through, probably see these until about the end of June.

These were born 17 years ago, in 2008, and now they get to come back as adults.

They've emerged from the soil where they've been living as nymphs for the last 17 years, feeding in the tree root zone on sap.

We've been nicknaming them the Bourbon Brood this time around because this brood brood 14.

It is found in 12 different states in the eastern United States, but the epicenter, it seems like if you look at the map, Kentucky has a lot of our counties highlighted by this brood.

So it seems like we're kind of their home turf.

Periodical cicadas are different from the annual cicadas.

People may be more familiar with because they come out earlier in the summer, whereas the annual cicadas tend to come out in July and August and September.

They're also smaller.

They also are black and they have bright red eyes, where the annual cicadas tend to be kind of a green, brown and black mixture.

They don't bite or sting.

They do land on people pretty frequently, especially if you're somebody that works with power tools outdoors.

You might emit some high frequency noises that they seem to find appealing for the different species of periodical cicadas.

Right now, there's three different ones that are above ground, and they do make distinct songs from one another so they don't cross and mate with one another.

They have different noises.

You might hear some that sound like they're saying Pharoah over and over again.

Those are some of the larger periodicals.

But here in Fayette County, I've noticed more of the smaller ones that make the larger kind of clicking, whirring, grinding noise.

The males are the ones that sing.

I would encourage people to try to enjoy it.

I know it's quite loud.

I know that it's a lot of bugs.

It's millions, maybe billions of teenage insects making noise and singing in your trees.

But it is a really amazing piece of nature.

I hope that people can appreciate that it's a rarity.

It only happens here in the United States and that it's something of a biological phenomenon.

If you have small trees, you might consider protecting them if they've been planted in the last year or so.

You can wrap them with cicada netting, but beyond that, they'll be here, and then they'll be gone and kind of a blink of an eye.

We shouldn't expect more periodical cicada in the next few years.

The next brood that should return will either be brood 19 or brood ten.

That'll come out probably in abo Can't wait for that.

Certainly.

And cicadas, believe it or not, also make a great source of protein for a variety of animals, such as turkeys and squirrels.

And even some humans like to chop on them from time to time.