first cicada of the season

i heard the first cicada of the season today and thought it was a bit early to hear one of these loud bugs. i've never paid attention to when these come out but i've always associated them with the "dog days of summer" which i thought was later in august. this is probably normal and i just never noticed before. i do wonder if any scientific organization has monitored these bugs with reference to the global warming thing going on. they monitor birds, and bees, and frogs, why not cicadas? i'm sure they can be affected by climate changes as well.
i'm somewhat curious because these bugs used to fascinate me as a kid. i would see their shedded skins a couple of feet up on a tree and wonder what the heck it was. i was stunned to learn that they had lived in the earth for 17 years. wow, imagine that! i used to see a lot of them fully grown also but never knew that's where they came from. i also thought they must have a pretty good bite so i never touched them but i marvelled at how ugly and scary looking they were. can you believe some people eat these things? fascinating!
i'm sure there'll be plenty more cicadas soon enough and the dog days will be filled with their song.
http://www.cicadas-pictures.com/index.html
http://www.cicadamania.com/cicadas/2006/08/26/apache-cicada/
http://www.gpnc.org/cicadas.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_days
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming