Firefly Sightings
- Catching fireflies is an important part of summer.
- Help us track where people are seeing fireflies in their backyard.
- Submit your sightings on the map and connect with others who spotted fireflies in your area.
Submit Your sightings
Firefly Stories
This is the place to tell us how you brought fireflies back in your yard, the changes in population you’ve observed in your area, or the fun time you had catching fireflies with your kids. If it’s a story, and if it’s about fireflies, post it here.
Be one of the first to publish a story on the site! Email us your story, name, and location and we will post it promptly for all to see!
Bonne Terre, Missouri
Fireworks and Fireflies by Mike Mitchell
Where I grew up, in Bonne Terre, Missouri, we called them lightning bugs and there was little evening entertainment more enthralling than chasing those flashes around the yard with a mayonnaise or jelly jar. We would punch holes in the lid with an ice-pick and throw in a few sprigs of fresh grass; for them to eat of course! The same jars were used day after day, week after week - catching lightning bugs in the evenings and honey bees during the day. We put clover in the jars for the honey bees. What fun to catch the flying luminaries and then let them go all at once after the count and the winner was declared.
The most interesting story, however, that I could tell about lightning bugs took place after I was an adult. Life events had taken me to Texas when I was thirteen and I grew up and went to work in my new home. However, in 1983 I moved my family to Villa Grove. Villa Grove was a small town in central eastern Illinois. We quickly learned that community events were "the" entertainment in smaller towns like Villa Grove. Everyone would gather, visit, enjoy each other's company and plan for the next bazar, auction or other varied event. Villa Grove was too small to have it's own Forth of July celebration, but nearby Tuscola had a fireworks display each year, presented by the volunteer fire department. Everyone for miles around would come and empty their change and a few bills into the boots that the volunteers held out when leaving the city park. This might seem like an unusual setting for lightening bugs, but it's one that I won't forget and neither will our friends who lived in Tuscola and invited us each year we were there to attend with them.
As we settled in on or blankets and chairs the sun sank and darkness
pressed in. The event began with the usual array of fountains, and flags
and moved on into the aerial barrage of colors and light. Some of the
aerial fireworks were just a very loud "bang" and an intense
explosion of white light. That's when my friend noticed that the lightning
bugs would all seem to flash at the same time immediately after the very
bright flash of the fireworks. They did it again and again, only in response
to that particular type of firework. I was, frankly, amazed. I had never
seen anything like it - until the next year. Again we gathered, darkness
came and the event began and, again, in response to the same bright flash
and explosion all the lightning bugs flashed at the same time - again
and again. I've never done any reading to see if that is some type of
automatic or conditioned response, but I wish I could have capture it
on video because if was every bit as entertaining as the production put
on by the volunteer fire department and not once did I have to pay those
little bugs for their show.
Steeleville, MO
Fireflies and Tree Frogs
Last summer we were in Steeleville, MO at a place called wildwood springs lodge walking up through the woods from the river. The tree frogs were singing as the sun was setting. We turned around to notice that the fireflies were twinkling in synchronicity with the tree frogs! What a fabulous light show it created. We just sat and watched in awe. Submitted by Elaine Charlemagne, Kirkwood, MO
Marriottsville, Maryland
Classical Music Firefly Show
One
evening many summer’s ago I was relaxing on the deck watching 10’s of
thousand’s of fireflies. I had grown up catching them in jars, but I had
never seen them in such huge numbers. Some of the trees bordering our
yard were 40 feet high and many were flying above the trees. It was spectacular.
It reminded me of a laser light show I had seen years before except this
was peaceful with just the undulating firefly dance. Adding classical
music gave me an unforgettable event more memorable than the laser light
show. Each year since there has been fewer and fewer of those tiny blinking
darlings. Some years it seems that I have been able to count them. I now
realize that was the year my husband’s lawn tractor was broken. Because
there is high demand for mower repairs during the summer, the mower didn’t
come back for weeks and weeks. So the grass grew and grew. And so did
the number of lightening bugs. Now that I know next year there will be
more uncut grass. Submitted by Sherryl Shea, Marriottsville, Maryland
Uvongo, South Africa
Fireflies in Uvongo, South Africa
We are privileged to live in a lovely home, set in a beautiful garden with natural rock which meanders down to the indigenous bush which forms part of the Uvongo River Conservancy. We have lived in this house for going on 6 years now and are privileged to share our garden with a troup of 25 vervet monkeys (who visit almost every day), a pair of bushy tailed mongoose, a pair of blue duiker, various snakes and a host of both ground and tree hyraxes, in amongst all of this, the bird life is prolific (including birds of prey) with many nesting in and around the natural bush and vegetation.
My story begins just over two years ago, when I looked out of our “sun room” window one night to see “a light” glowing down near the swimming pool (our swimming pool is set in the natural rock and the surrounding rock has beautiful indentations that fill up with rain water often during the year (our climate is sub-tropical on the East Coast South Africa). I thought there was someone down there with a torch (we had never had fireflies in our garden before - or not any that we had seen!), I called my husband, he went down but couldn’t see them - to me they were shining brightly. I was mesmerised. The following night they were back only now they had moved up the pathway towards the house, my husband still couldn’t see them.
A week later I saw them just outside the sun room window in my garden under the tree - this time my husband saw them as well! Over the next couple of weeks we saw them constantly, the one night we had one in our lounge, later that night when went to bed and switched off the lights there was one in our bedroom (the same one? - I’m not sure). Six weeks later we found out that we were to be grandparents for the first time! We were thrilled and so excited, however as things turned out that pregnancy was terminated at 5½ months and our precious baby died. During these 5½ months our garden was often visited by fireflies, we even had them on the side of our house flying against the window. Were they the messengers of new life? Submitted by Bev van Vuuren, Uvongo, South Africa
How to Catch Lightning Bugs
Tips on how best to catch lightning bugs or fireflies. | More
Creating Firefly Habitats
What kind of habitat do fireflies like? Why do they like standing water? | More
Share Your Firefly Story
This is the place to tell us how you brought fireflies back in your yard. | More
How to Help Fireflies
There are a few things you could do to help to restore fireflies in your backyard | More