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Thread: Fireflies?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Vermont

    Fireflies?

    My wife and I have often lamented that there aren't nearly as many fireflies as we saw when we were kids (yes, we walked three miles uphill to school each way)....but this year we're having a real explosion of them.

    Is anyone else seeing this? Perhaps our situation is due to our Great Tree Debacle of 2017...we now have about three acres, formerly filled with big pine trees, that are just growing wild, no grass, just brush and young trees, and the fireflies seem to love it, hundreds of them out each evening...birds are enjoying it too, all kinds of inscrutable nesting action in there.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, DC area
    My nephew wants us to more accurately call them “blinkin’ beetles” as they aren’t flies.

    He’s not winning.

    -jk

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Location
    Summerville ,S.C.
    Quote Originally Posted by budwom View Post
    My wife and I have often lamented that there aren't nearly as many fireflies as we saw when we were kids (yes, we walked three miles uphill to school each way)...but this year we're having a real explosion of them.

    Is anyone else seeing this? Perhaps our situation is due to our Great Tree Debacle of 2017...we now have about three acres, formerly filled with big pine trees, that are just growing wild, no grass, just brush and young trees, and the fireflies seem to love it, hundreds of them out each evening...birds are enjoying it too, all kinds of inscrutable nesting action in there.
    I actually saw two the otherday .i havent see them in quite sometime.

    Im actually looking at acreage my self.

  4. #4
    My sister's kids would catch them and then call the jar their campfire. Smokey the Bear would probably have approved of this kind of fire.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Outside Philly
    We’ve got a lot of trees and live on a few dark acres so we usually have a nice number this time of year. They’ve just started to really pop the last few weeks.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Vermont
    Quote Originally Posted by bundabergdevil View Post
    We’ve got a lot of trees and live on a few dark acres so we usually have a nice number this time of year. They’ve just started to really pop the last few weeks.
    we've always had good darkness...there seems to be something about the trees being gone and lots of brush growing up...

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Steamboat Springs, CO
    Quote Originally Posted by -jk View Post
    My nephew wants us to more accurately call them “blinkin’ beetles” as they aren’t flies.

    He’s not winning.

    -jk
    Is the term "Lightning Bugs" a regionalism? That's what we called them in SC. Moreover, "bugs" includes "beetles."
    Sage Grouse

    ---------------------------------------
    'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by sagegrouse View Post
    Is the term "Lightning Bugs" a regionalism? That's what we called them in SC. Moreover, "bugs" includes "beetles."
    Yes: https://www.businessinsider.com/fire...age-map-2018-7

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    North of Durham
    Quote Originally Posted by BlueDevil2K View Post
    I grew up in the suburbs of NY so use the two terms interchangeably, as the article notes, though would lean towards fireflies. As a kid I used to love them - we would get a plastic container, poke tiny holes in it, then catch them. I now live in the city so do not see them.

    There is a children's clothing brand called Chasing Fireflies which I think is wonderful branding - brings back many happy memories.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Durham, NC
    Lightnin' bugs are out in NC! Someday, I want to see the synchronized ones and the blue ones in the NC mountains.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Outside Philly
    Quote Originally Posted by aimo View Post
    Lightnin' bugs are out in NC! Someday, I want to see the synchronized ones and the blue ones in the NC mountains.
    I’ve seen the synchronous fireflies in GSMNP. They were on the east side of the park near Cades Cove if I recall. Very cool!

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by bundabergdevil View Post
    I’ve seen the synchronous fireflies in GSMNP. They were on the east side of the park near Cades Cove if I recall. Very cool!
    They sell tickets through a lottery system for the blue firefly tours. I hear it is amazing.

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