The chickadees nesting in Laura's backyard depend on plenty of insects to raise their young, raising Laura's awareness of how important caterpillars are right when people are turning to pesticides to eradicate insects. In the Washington, D.C. area where cicadas have been emerging, birds are being found dead and dying from something neurological that is causing them to go blind. We don't know what the cause is, but it quite possibly is the pesticides people are using to eradicate the cicadas.