These recent humid, warm evenings have enabled a series of tiny flashing lights across the landscape that immediately warms the heart and excites our inner sense of childhood wonder. This symphony of light is put on by our local luminescent beetle, the firefly or “lightning bug”. While we sit back and enjoy their show, these tiny insects are actually using their dedicated organs which take in oxygen and mix it with a substance called luciferin to produce a unique light pulse with very little heat so they can find a mate and in some cases, potentially ward off predators.
As many of you may have noticed in your lifetime, once more numerous and a captivating part of our childhood summers, now the firefly populations have declined, making them difficult to even find in some areas. Their larvae prefer rotting wood and leaf litter in the edges of forest habitats often near wetlands. Our commercial areas and manicured lawns no longer provide the right ingredients and the light pollution of our cities and neighborhoods are believed to disrupt their patterns, resulting in less breeding and less young being born for future generations.
We feel fortunate that the site of the Susquehannock Wildlife Center still provides great habitat for fireflies with our creek, forest and especially our meadow restoration area lighting up when the sun disappears over the hill and the stars appear to join in the glowing festivities. You can make your backyards more firefly friendly by leaving select piles of debris and leaves for their larvae and avoiding the use of pesticides. Turning off or using motion sensor lights also assist in controlling the light pollution that harms many of our nocturnal species including bats, moths and fireflies.
While we are usually excited to share our fireflies with you each year with our firefly hike and campfire, the current circumstances prevent us from safely inviting large groups out to our site but we hope to create new virtual ways to share these wonderful spectacles of nature with you until we can all gather again.
