Fireflies are not as ubiquitous as they used to be, and that’s a concern. They are like the canary in the mine. If fireflies go, other species go.
What has caused the decline? Lawn chemicals? Rapid urbanization? Scientists want to know.
NY Times reporter Alan Bllinder writes from Greenville, South Carolina, about a crowdsourced research project to help figure out what’s going on.
“As dusk faded over the home of Jeremy Lyons and his sons on a recent evening here, one ritual of the Southern summer — the soft hiss of a can of mosquito repellent — signaled that the start of another was near.
“And although Raine Lyons, 6, grimaced, coughed and flinched during his dousing with bug spray, he soon stood near a chain-link fence in his backyard and shouted, in speedy succession: ‘Found one! Found one! Found one!’ Mr. Lyons, perched on his knee next to Raine, was almost completely silent as he tapped the screen of his cellphone again and again and again.
“There, on a weeknight in a South Carolina backyard, a father and his son, in their different ways, were counting fireflies. But an evening among fireflies was not merely a modest round of summertime nostalgia; instead, it was part of a multiyear quest by Clemson University researchers to measure the firefly population and investigate whether urbanization, especially here in the fast-growing South, threatens the insects.” Read how they are going about it here.
I hope we can reverse the decline of fireflies. I have so many happy memories of them from my childhood and my children’s childhood.
Photo: Jacob Biba for The New York Times
Raine Lyons counting fireflies alongside his father, Jeremy, in Greenville, S.C., as volunteers in the Vanishing Firefly Project of Clemson University.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
Fortunately where I live here in the middle of Arkansas I get to see them during the summer months. I look forward to this ritual every year. I live in a very rural area, out in the “sticks” as some would say, but wouldn’t have it any other way. Lots of wildlife right out my front door … plus loads of fireflies.
Arkansas is a place I know nothing about. Would love to have you comment about your life in the countryside there — whenever you have time. It sounds so lovely, and I want to expand my horizons.
Fireflies
for my sister Jan Zimmer
Fireflies in circuitous flight,
Yellow torches flashing code
In the fragrant Ohio night.
Summer is here.
Flashing on…off…nothing.
“Oh, just wait. Wait…,”
I whisper, panting, and touch
Your hot hand. “Wait.”
Eyes scanning back and forth,
In the black, shadowless night.
We cannot see sweet-smelling,
white-flowered bushes.
On.
Then golden flashes all around us
Beam tiny love poems.
“Quick, quick, over there!”
Now off again.
And lost. No capture for
This one bright life.
A firefly cannot light
The way unless
You trust in the dark
Between the flashes.
What a lovely, lovely poem. Thank you so much. The last line is especially meaningful to me. Makes me think of how the Princess in “The Princess and the Goblin” had to trust in the invisible thread her magic grandmother gave her, even when the thread seemed to enter a solid cave wall.
Fireflies are alive and well at my sister’s farm just outside Ithaca, NY. It is truly magical to walk outside at night there. It would be sadly ironic (and all too human/short-sighted) if the bug spray with which the “counters” mentioned in this article doused themselves before beginning their task was in some way contributing to the decline of the fireflys… Perhaps our naive, often well-intentioned, period of widespread use of man-made poisons is beginning to end as we discover how many unexpected and hugely serious side effects they/we have caused.
Oh, golly, you have a point. I was mostly focused on what a nice father-son activity it was. I don’t know how bad the biting bugs are in the South. Here in the north, my family just keeps covered up when going where deer ticks roam. If we had a job cutting brush, say, we might feel the need to go beyond cover-ups sometimes, but there are always consequences to using chemicals. (See my post on Meadowscaping in Waltham.)