If you love fireflies and live where they do, there are a few things you can do to help them. Don't use pesticides in your yard, leave some long grass (edges, a patch), and leave some leaves in the fall. This will help them, all the other bugs in your yard, and the birds that rely on them for food.
Oh, and keep your lights off or dim at night. The flashing of fireflies is all about these fancy beetles looking for love. They need to find each other!
Cool, thanks!
I know they're all up and down Western Washington and NorCal, but they don't glow. You don't get bioluminescent ones in California until... San Diego, I think? SoCal, at any rate.
I haven't seen any lit up this year, but recognized one hanging out yesterday morning on a window. I showed my wife and told her how my grandma gave me a dead one when I was a kid, and that's how I knew. She also learned Grandma gave me a bat that got caught in the cottage chimney and dehydrated.
I feel like this is generally good advice. I live where there are no fireflies, alas, but I'm trying to cultuvate native bugs & slender salamanders, so when I prune or weed, I arrange the results on the ground unless they're badly diseased.
