I did this last year and saw twice as many fireflies.
Which means I saw six total all summer.
The suburbs suck.
A doubling is still a big deal, though. You made a difference! Imagine if that were to keep up throughout the neighborhood.
It’s a far cry from when I lived in the woods and could walk around on a dark night just from the light of fireflies.
When I was a child in the 70s we’d visit my great-grandparents in Indianapolis and the lightning bugs were like that. Image, a heavily polluted, major metro area had more lightning bugs than anywhere I’ve seen since.
I’m living in the same place I grew up and when I was a kid we could catch a couple dozen a night, enough to fill a jar and read by.
conversely, I saw tons last year in the suburbs!
this year was wasps, though
That could very well just be early stages. Very few fireflies means not many to reproduce
Save the environment by NOT doing a bullshit chore? Sounds like a fuckin win to me. I already wasn’t going to, but now I can feel smug about it.
While your on it don’t cut your grass for more of that.
Way ahead of you bud.
The fact that you don’t weed is also good. Barring invasive species most weeds are native species that local fauna rely on.
If I’d bought a home in ohio where I grew up i wanted to look into mint as ground cover and plant some wild strawberries.
Still cleanup sidewalks and walkways please, those leaves can be slippery little guys
I’ve got bad news. From my very limited knowledge of fire fires they don’t bread all that fast and colonies don’t travel very far.
So you might increase the fireflies you currently have you shouldn’t expect new fireflies.
It still helps. And they might not travel far but they do travel so it’s good to have a destination.
The best part is that even if it doesn’t work the entire point is that you aren’t doing extra work. Literally just do nothing and at worst nothing will happen but at best you’ll start seeing more and more improvement, if slowly at first.
Hmm “next summer” “spend two years on and underground” doesn’t quite fit together.
sure it does.
the fireflies that are already alive have a better chance to make it to next year if they have appropriate conditions to live in
How so? They need that habitat during the whole period - not just the first year.
It helps I guess ? Making some of the conditions more likely makes the sum* of all conditions more likely
*math vocabulary may be approximative
So…should we rake the woods to prevent forest fireflies?
The last time I saw them was around 30 years ago. What should I do then?
pile up 30 yrs of leaves and leave them bee
The leaves will help, but also, reduce light pollution (if at all possible)
But how will all the people making their rounds twice a day in parks with leafblowers at this time of year earn their living, then? Doing something meaningful? I don’t think so!
I thought Joel already took care of those losers…
I don’t know about the insect population in my backyard but I do know that it is a safe haven for wall lizards, they don’t even hide anymore when I’m there.
