To submit your own report email burger@burger.com
Please include your city/town and state, and the date of your sighting. Include as many details as you can, such as numbers of fireflies, location (rural/city/wooded area, etc), temperature, time, and so on. Thanks for helping with this project.
Below are reports from Virginia, listed in date order, alphabetically by city.
Chrlottesville:
May 15, 2012: A reader notes:
Hi. I saw a firefly last night in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was in my house, which is in a wooded area. I only saw one. It had just started sprinkling, and then there was a deluge of water. The grass has been very damp lately, with a lot of moisture.
I don't know if you are still collecting data, but it was great to see my first firefly of the season. Chesapeake:
May 27, 2003: A reader writes: Living in Chesapeake, Virginia, I've noticed over a 14 year span that some years they
are abundant, while other years there are few out and about, so to speak. It seems
like every 3 or 4 years a whole bunch pop up then the next year they diminish
somewhat. the year after even less then bam, they are back in the millions. Fairfax County:
June 12, 1999: A reader notes: Here in Fairfax County, Virginia, we have lots of fireflies!! I saw the
first ones this season on May 28, 1999, and each night there are more
out. I have lived in upstate New York, coastal Connecticut, urban Rhode
Island, and Northern California before living here. Of all those
places, there is nowhere like northern Virginia for fireflies. Within a
couple of weeks, we'll be able to look in our back yard at night and see
the trees lit up with so many fireflies that they'll look like Christmas
trees! It is truly a magnificent sight. If you miss seeing fireflies,
visit the Washington, DC suburbs in June any year.
Front Royal:
July 19, 2002: Sheila reports: I enjoyed your website on fireflies, or, as I call them, lightning bugs. I grew up in in the middle of Indiana and as as children my brothers and I used to catch them like everyone else in glass jars and then turn them lose before going in the house for the night. There were lots of them. When I married and moved to Southern California we did not see any for the two years we lived there. When we moved to the Tampa area in Florida, I don't remember any either, but we lived in the city. Now I live in the foothills of the Blueridge Mountains just outside of Front Royal, Virginia, and there are hundreds of them in my yard. I go out on my deck around 9:30 in the evening and there is a real light show. They are everywhere. The area I live in is also heavily wooded and very dark as there are no street lights. I see lots of them in the trees and they look like the little white twinkling lights on Christmas trees. They are so pretty. We do not have mosquito control up here. I can still see them everywhere lighting up in my yard even when I go to bed at eleven p.m. They usually come in June and stay until around the end of July. We do not have fire ants here. Northern Virginia:
July 16, 2001: A reader reports: I am delighted, thrilled, astonished to find your great amalgamation of
sighting descriptions, also to get the chance to tell of my own.
In all the various climates of our extremely suburban, Northern Virginia
yard (shade, full sun, lawn, flower gardens, shrubs, ground cover, water
garden, woods) the fireflies seem to rise about a half hour before sundown,
only from an untrampled area of English Ivy spreading in a circle of about
20' in diameter below a 24-year old cherry tree not 100 feet from a busy
street. For the next hour, they hover there, slowly working their way
outward into the rest of the yard, perhaps neighborhood. Perhaps as many 25
of these beautiful beetles stay close to the ground, mostly well within
four feet of it. They hover in place, then dip to within a few inches of
the ground, light-up, shoot straight up directly into the air above while
lit, dimming, hover a second, and then, unlit, swoop about three feet
laterally in any direction, to begin the dance again. The flashes seem to
last about two seconds; the unlit pauses, about five seconds. Many
evenings, there are robins busying about the lawn very nearby...and blue
jays on the hunt in the next yard...but never do the fireflies seem to be of
interest. I have read that they are toxic to birds.
All of this firefly activity seems to begin here around the middle of June.
I am keeping track this year to see when they disappear...as I THOUGHT in
past years that they stayed around only a couple of weeks. It has been
quite rainy here, however; a friend has suggested that the fireflies' term
MAY be governed by moisture.
Oh, yes, we do not use pesticides...nor do our neighbors. However, there
MAY have been nearby county spraying this spring for gypsy moth
caterpillars.
After the low flying fireflies disappear each night, there are a very few
flashes from the heights...always in the trees, mostly from the wooded area
behind the house. The lighting pattern of these insects is totally
different. It tends to run in a series of even flashes, each flash and
pause lasting one second or two. I haven't yet been able to figure if each
bug stops flashing for a while or if I just lose sight of that particular
firefly.
Two years ago, my daughter and son-in-law had a home far out in the country
near Blacksburg, Virginia, in the southwestern part of the state. Their
surrounding woods were loaded with flashes when I visited in June, so
brilliant as to be well viewed from the center of the mountainside cow
fields surrounding them, a good 150 feet from woods' edge. There were no
low-fliers in that place at that time.
I look forward to more clues at your site! Many, many thanks. Oakton:
June 15, 1998: A reader writes: Last night I sat on my deck in Oakton, Virginia, and watched the fireflies drift
and blink their way through the trees. It was magical. Having lived my life
to this point in a place (Seattle)that is sadly lacking these wondrous
creatures, their presence was a primary criterion when home-hunting in our
move to the east coast. I can understand your desire to reinstate them in
Houston. Good Luck. Palmyra:
July 8, 2002: Edward Cossette writes: I grew up seeing fireflies frequently in NH but then they seemed to have
vanished. I went decades without seeing any. However, since moving to
Palmyra, Virginia (about 15 miles east of Charlottesville), I see hundreds of them
every evening during the summer. It helps that I live in a subdivision that
is very aware of "light pollution" and so doesn't use any streetlights at
all. On top of that the neighborhood is very wooded (to the point that you
can't see the neighbors' houses through the leaves) and there are many
streams and brooks that crisscross though many yards, including mine. It's
the perfect habitat for the lampyridae. At night it is truly pitch black
and the fireflies put on a tremendous show. Reston:
September 8, 2000: A reader reports: We were visiting my sister-in-law and her family in Jefferson, Maryland, the week of July 4. They had several hundred fireflies in their yard every night. The yard consists of lawn / open grass and low plants extends down to a sometimes creek, where there is a wood. While we were there, we read something that, as I remember, indicates that female fireflies stay low in the grass, the males fly higher around the trees looking for the females. I don't remember the source. We lived near Reston, Virginia, for several years . We saw lots of Fireflies there. We now live in Seattle, but we miss the fireflies. I have never seen one out here. Yorktown:
In Yorktown, Virginia, , on the managed battlefield, (when I lived there in the
eighties) the lightning bugs were so thick it was like walking through
something from Disneyland. Even my crotchety brother was impressed. I
think it has to do with habitat.
The Virginia Tidewater, by the way, is very similar in climate to Houston,
meaning that you can swelter there, too, as late as November. At least it
was when I was there.
Maybe if someone could put a stop to the constant bulldozing of forest for
more supermarkets and cheap houses, the bugs would stand a chance.