Over the last 7-8 years, I've been noticing each summer that there seems to be fewer and fewer fire flies where I live. Last year seemed quite dramatic in the reduction of the little fellas, and this year seems to be following along the same. At times I thought maybe it was just my imagination, but then I recieved this months edition of National Geographic. It had a small piece on fire flies, and there seems to be a world wide reduction of them. The article said that it is believed to be probably caused by a combination of habitat loss and light pollution. I am really starting to miss them. We have a few still, but nothing like a few years ago. Has anyone else noticed this decline?
Sure have. Used to have a beautiful light display starting at about this time every year...nowadays if I see ANY fireflies I celebrate. I have read that in large part this decline is due to elimination of water sources, a necessary element in the firefly life cycle.
Just went outside and spent about 15 minutes watching. Only saw one fly across the yard, 5 years ago I'd have spotted 50 in that time. If I look across the yard and out into the woods, I see more, but they're spread quite a bit apart. Found a few nice websites devoted to the insects, firefly.org is a good site with lots of information without getting too technical. they have some good links to other fire fly sites and videos. I learned a lot about them, pretty interesting little critters!
I don't lack any fire flies up here in my yard, they are all over my wood pile and gardens, The bushes that surround my property are full of the little twinklers every night. by next month I'll be able to walk out side and actually catch them by hand, a little game my kids and I play with the little fellas.
Glad to hear that you've still got plenty of them up there. I used to have a ball catching them myself when I was a youngster. Of course at that time we would tear their tails off and stick them all over our bodies and run around glowing in the dark! Was just outside sitting with my dog and was pleased to find that there seems to be a surplus of them flying about the yard tonight. More than I've seen at one time in a couple years.
Not sure what the weather is like down your way, but if you have a reasonably wet spring or winter with a lot of moisture still in the ground then it certainly will help the firefly population, they like it damp, I've been keeping a journal for the last 14 years while living here and I write everything from rainfall accumulation and temps. and noticed that on our drier years the numbers of FF were down somewhat, I believe that rain definately makes a difference.
Now that you mention it... the last two years have been extremely dry. One of the worst droughts in 50 years or so, got pretty serious with many people's wells going dry. The resevoir that supplies Atlanta with water was at critically low level last summer. So far, this has been a very wet spring and I believe last week we finally got the water deficit here locally back to zero. Been doing some reading about fire flies, and they definately need water to thrive. I live right on the bank of the Tennessee river, but I'd say the barge traffic and the resultant waves make it hard for the flies to breed right along the bank. So I guess they really need that wet weather to provide suitable habitat away from the river's edge.
We made our selves a pond when we first bought our place, it's a decent size enough for gold fish, pond minnows, frogs and lots of moisture loving plants, like daylilies, spearment, a few hostas, and right now has the temps begin to rise the fireflies are all over the place. I'd like to think I have my own little Oasis.
