Firefly Extinction Imminent

a reply to: Artesia

Last year we had a huge firefly summer.
Their population really seem to depend on the winters and how much rain we get in the spring.
There really is something magical about them.

The thick perfumed summer air. Hearing crickets in the background. Nothing can beat the sun slowly lowering below the horizon. Then the dance begins. One dim flash, then two. Before you know the entire sky is sparkling with their mesmerizing twinkle. That yellow glow, as if it is living gold. One moment can take me back in an instant. I am six. It is rural Pennsylvania. My cousins and I are laughing at my grandmas house. I can smell her kitchen. The adults are sitting in metal lawn chairs. We have glass milk jars and jelly jars. We are runny around barefoot catching lighting bugs to make our own lanterns. My dad tells me not to keep them in there too long or they will die. Seconds later, I am back in Wisconsin. It seems like billions of lightening bugs have taken over the sky. They are able to fly both slow and fast, just like time.

Firefly Extinction Imminent... pfft.. not in my area.
I see them every year... they also make good fishing bait. : )

The only place fireflies would go extinct is in the big cities...

No lack of fireflies in my area by any means. Not just my yard, my whole neighborhood in general is a kind of firefly ground zero.

My kids fill a glass jar full of them every year, it's part of my nerdy kid's annual yard survey of them -- however many they catch in a few hours time is compared against previous years' jar numbers for those hours. Both the jar number and visual amount out in the yard is going up every year. Last year, we had a population boom, to the point they were getting inside the house when we came & went.

Fireflies aren't going anywhere. Aside from perhaps to my neighborhood, the gettin' must be good around here.

The best ways I know to reinvigorate fireflies:

- stop using weed and feed, etc. Chemicals, especially pesticides that would kill things like grubs, will kill entire populations
- water your yard plenty. To get fireflies this year, they need a nice wet grass to lay eggs. Don't be stingy with water


Thats really it. Water is a big one.

I grew up in the south and my childhood home backed up to a forest. During the summer, it was literally like a fireworks show the fireflies were so thick. Truly beautiful. No too mention the almost deafening sound of crickets chirping.

Now that I live in a urban area in Chicago, we don't see them nearly as much. I wish my son could see them lighting up.
Instead of crickets, it is the errant gun shot and sirens.

We are fortunate to still get quite a few fireflies each night from late Spring through mid Summer. We have a couple acres, and a spring fed creek which helps.

I do mow the main lawn each week and use RoundUp as needed on that main lawn, but that's only about .75 acres of the total lot. We have free range chickens, a couple turkeys that like to hang out on our land (not our turkeys, but they seem to like me) and all sorts of other wild critters. The other night, I watched about 30 crawdads (crawfish, if you will) walking across the side yard, I assume heading for the creek. There are crawdad holes all over the side yard. My Round Up use has not had a single impact on our critters.

Come to Tennessee, the Great Smoky Mountains, and watch the Photinus Carolinus (synchronous fireflies). They will begin flashing in a few more weeks.
I can't recall a summer where I haven't seen fireflies. To me, it's a signal that summer is in full swing.

a reply to: TNMockingbird

We even have them in Nashville...the big ol city at that. I remember my wife seeing them for the first time, she grew up in New Mexico which doesn't have the climate for them, and she was awe struck. I grew up in Virginia and we always had tons of them so I never really thought much about people having never seen them because they were so normal where I've lived.

Fireflies are aesthetically pleasing to watch but what if they are "meant" to go extinct? You can't say any one species is meant to last forever. That's an unnatural way of looking at things. Everything dies and is replaced. Humans try to keep a non-static system static. It sucks to see less and less fire bugs, but what if it's worse for us to keep them around?

a reply to: Artesia

Up here in northern Ontario, in the summer months - July and August only, my front yard is lit up from when the sun goes down at 10 pm until 5 am when the sun comes up.
It’s a nonstop glowing display all night long.

When they mate and are out flashing like mad for a week straight, every night it’s like the stars are dancing on my lawn.

If you stand still for a couple minutes they will land on you, let them settle for a minute, then move suddenly, they will fly off and there will be a glowing outline of your body.

Wonderful looking little creatures.

originally posted by: Macenroe82
a reply to: Artesia
If you stand still for a couple minutes they will land on you, let them settle for a minute, then move suddenly, they will fly off and there will be a glowing outline of your body.

Wonderful looking little creatures.

They do that to us on our deck, also. We'll be sitting there and all of a sudden someone's leg/shoulder/arm/hair will start flashing.

My younger kid likes to usher them on to her fingertips and talk to them. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear they settle in & listen, too.

I had done a similar thread a few years ago:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Similar replies...even back then

a reply to: ArtesiaNah, they must be migrating to Connecticut because my backyard was loaded last year.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Nature does need our help we are nature and yes i do stuff. Lots of stuff. Recreate habitiats. Permaculutre courses. Most importnalty teach peeps to be regenerative models. Give back more than you take.

If you want to sit there doing nothing and feeling powerless thats fine by me. But you can do something its simply your choice.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
The best ways I know to reinvigorate fireflies:

- stop using weed and feed, etc. Chemicals, especially pesticides that would kill things like grubs, will kill entire populations
- water your yard plenty. To get fireflies this year, they need a nice wet grass to lay eggs. Don't be stingy with water


Thats really it. Water is a big one.

Spot on. Dont use chemicals that kill them. If you have a lawn mow the grass higher. 10cm min. It allows a flower layer to form. Over hear in the UK dandilions are the first flowers to come out on a lawn. They are not weeds they provide food for the first bees.

One thing that really helps is planting flowers. Converting a lawn to a flower meadow is a beautiful thing. It requires a lot less maintenance. Cutting just once a year. It looks lovely and provides a lot of food for the insects. Bring the insects back the birds follow.

a reply to: Purpapengus

Everything dies and is replaced. Humans try to keep a non-static system static. It sucks to see less and less fire bugs, but what if it's worse for us to keep them around

It is is that is creating non static systems. The insects have been here a very long time. So long it makes the dinosaurs look like babies. If they are struggling on mass which they are it says there is something wrong with our system. Like a miners bird.

At this point we have a choice if we dont do something about it there will be big repreccusuions in the future. We are not separate from our ecology as much as my might thing we are. We live within a interconnected web of life. If the web breaks. We break. The web creates our soil, our air, it provides our food and so much more.

a reply to: usernameconspiracy

Have you tired not using round up and letting your lawn grow. The weeds that come up will do a lot help the insects.

A lawn is devoid of life. It provides no benefit to insects. Let is flower and encourage it and it does. If you have land find out what insects are struggling in your area and find out what food and habitat they like. Its often easy enough to get seeds to plant stuff up and it really can make a difference.

a reply to: Nyiah

Fireflies aren't going anywhere. Aside from perhaps to my neighborhood, the gettin' must be good around here

They are on the decline along with insect populations worldwide. Here in the UK it is estimated that there has been a 70 percent decrease in insect populations in 30 years.

Its a worldwide event and yes it may look like they are not going anywhere because you have them around you. But peeps have been monitoring there populations for years. I have done it do.

If you have them in your area and you like them do something about it you can make a real difference.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Not saying you are definitely one of the "environmentalists" that obtain joy in scrambling nature, just saying it like it is. The more we do, the worse off we are. The less we do, the better off everything is. Leave nature alone and let it do what it does best.

Think about what you are saying you are in self contradiction to how we live as a species.
We dont leave nature alone thats why we are living through an ecocide.

a reply to: TheRedneck

The coal mine certainly did NOT leave nature alone, but once they left and did leave it alone, it recovered

You are imagining a result and treating it as fact. How do you know it has recovered. Do you know what was there before. Did you go and look what populations where there. Did you do insect surveys.

No you didnt. You look at it and see in your own imagination that it has recovered. Where the truth of the issue is you dont have a clue what your talking about.