True Happiness is a Starfield of Fireflies

Here's how to attract them to your yard.

Few things in life fill me with more childlike wonder than Lampyridae (pronounced (lam-PAIR-uh-dee) of the beetle family Coleoptera, commonly referred to as fireflies. To see a night sky full of flashing fireflies is to know a feeling of serenity and contentment that no other experience can bring. In Japan, fireflies (known as hotaru) inspire their own form of celebration. The Kugayama Firefly Festival takes place the first week in June, but there are other parks Japanese families flock to in the summer that are a breathtaking light show of fireflies.

West of Kansas, it’s very rare to see fireflies, which is why growing up in California didn’t afford me many opportunities to do so. In my typically melancholic way, I assumed we’d just killed them off, much as we’d mowed down miles of orange groves in my hometown of Pasadena to make way for suburbs. But as it turns out, the western United States are simply too arid for these amazing creatures. Fireflies stick to the marshlands, the temperate climates of our middle latitudes, and the tropics. Discover a wet, wooded area without much city light interference, and come twilight, you are likely to see fireflies.

Three years ago, my daughter came for a post-graduation visit, and I was heartbroken when she returned home a month later. After John and I dropped her off at the airport in Milan, we made our way to Ospedaletti, a beach town near Sanremo in the northwestern corner of Italy. John was slated to perform at a tribute concert there for a recently departed friend. All those sad faces mirroring my own did nothing to raise my spirits, but John, who knows me better than I know myself, always has a failsafe method for pulling me out of my occasional doldrums: 1) take me someplace I’ve never been before, 2) make it a place abundant in natural beauty.

The advantage this gives him over me is considerable. I can have a perfectly respectable funk going, and he’ll find a way to ruin it by dragging me to a lovely park or a scenic overlook or a large body of water. Often, there are coffees involved.

In a way, vistas of great natural beauty turn me into a hungry schnauzer dancing for snausages. Troubles be damned, there’s a medieval church we haven’t seen.

And so it was after we left Ospedaletti. John decided we would have a nice dinner in the medieval village of Baiardo, which is about seventy miles southwest of Genoa and 3,000 feet up. The road ribboning up that hill was so narrow, we sometimes had to back up to let people pass who were coming from the opposite direction. We were so close to the edge, I dared not look out the window. Inches from our tires was the howling abyss of every nightmare, only prettied up with trees and gobsmacking views that were clearly an attempt to distract us from our imminent doom.

“My God,” I said, clutching the passenger hand strap. “We have to drive back down again only it’s going to be pitch black.”

“No worries,” John said. “We’ll probably be the only ones on the road by that hour.”

And by that, he meant we were going to die and no one would ever find us.

By some miracle, we did have a delicious dinner in Baiardo, which as you might imagine had some magnificent views. Better still, we had the village mostly to ourselves. Yes, I admit the beauty had an ameliorating effect on my mood. It still felt as though my heart had been ripped out, but the pain was more manageable, like I was maybe one or two more unexplored villages away from ever smiling again.

But as we trundled down that narrow road to our B&B, the mountain on one side and a massive drop-off on the other, we suddenly found ourselves in a glittering starfield of fireflies. They were everywhere, twinkling serenely in the dark. It was pure magic, and for at least ten minutes, we sat in the car and watched. My breathing slowed. A feeling of peace and quiet joy came over me. In a world that so often horrified me, a world where at that exact moment people were starving, experiencing brutality at the hands of others, suffering deprivation of every kind, John and I were on a mountain in the middle of nowhere, the only witnesses to a miracle.

The incomparable views from Baiardo, Liguria, Italy.

A few days after mating, a female firefly lays her fertilized eggs just below the topsoil. Three to four weeks later, the eggs hatch, feeding like the specialized predators they are on other larvae, snails, and slugs. Some even have mandibles that pump digestive juices directly into their prey, all the better for easy slurping. Then the larvae pupate for a few weeks, and voila! Fireflies.

All fireflies glow as larvae, where bioluminescence serves as an honest aposematic warning signal to predators—fancy talk for truth in advertising. Should a predator ignore the “honest” advertising by the larvae that they are not worth eating, said predator will discover to his dismay that firefly larvae share the same flavor profile as poisonous toads.

Light-emission serves another purpose as well: attracting mates. Different species are distinguished by their unique courtship flash patterns. These are known as photic signals, and they are characterized by duration, timing, color, number and rate of repetitions.

Nature ensures that there will be no interspecies snorgling.

By mimicking the photic signaling patterns of its smaller brethren, the female Photuris firefly attracts males and then devours them, provisioning it with a steady supply of the toxic defensive chemicals it needs in order to survive.

I know some humans like that. One of them was in the White House.

Light pollution, habitat loss, pesticides—in other words, all the elements found on a typical American lawn—pose the biggest threat to fireflies. But there are things you can do that will attract them. Mind you, every one of these things will get you in trouble with your homeowner’s association, if you have one, but maybe you can find a way to be sneaky about it. After all, what says “summer” like sitting on the front porch with a juicy piece of watermelon and watching the fireflies turn their taillights on?

1. Let your grass grow. Fireflies are attracted to long grass and shrubbery. During the day, they like to hide in grass, and at night, the females hang on to the long stems, flashing their nethers at cute boy fireflies. Beware: long grass can also mean ticks.

2. Plant native pines, if possible. The soft needles that carpet the ground create an ideal hatchery for firefly larvae.

3. Plant native flowers. Fireflies are attracted to pollen and nectar, so the more flowers, the better. You’ll also get hummingbirds and bees, which equals bonus points.

4. Store wood and allow it to rot. Rotting wood is to fireflies what a Dunkin’ Donuts is to a woman with galloping PMS. Fireflies use it to lay their eggs, and then the larvae feed on the snails and slugs that are also drawn to its “delicious” aroma. You might think about keeping the pile at the side of your yard since humans don’t always find that odor so delicious. Also, if your area is prone to wildfires, storing firewood is not advisable.

5. Create a water feature in your yard. Maybe something with koi or waterlilies? Fireflies love moisture. Be advised that standing water will also attract mosquitoes, which are less fun.

6. No pesticides. That should be a given for any reason. Pesticides are terrible for the environment, terrible for firefly production, and terrible for you.

7. Keep your yard lights off. Fireflies are natural divas, and they won’t perform if they have to compete with your yard lights. Keeping them off may attract burglars, but so what. Priorities much?

8. Leave the worms, grubs, slugs, and snails for your new colony of firefly larvae. To you, they’re a nuisance, but to larvae, they’re a big slimy all-you-can-eat buffet.

And there you go! Everything you need to know to attract fireflies to your yard and make your little slice of the world a better place.

Lasting happiness is found not in the fulfillment of some egoic dream, but in the smallest of small things. Never forget that.

And on that note, I’ll leave you with the words of William Martin.

What are your thoughts on fireflies? I want to hear your comments, so be sure to leave them below.

Copyright © 2022 Stacey Eskelin