I grew up in a place that didn’t have fireflies that lit up at night, but I have loved them as long as I can remember.  I was thrilled, absolutely thrilled, when I saw a firefly a few nights after I moved to Raleigh!  Finally, I lived in a place that has them and seeing them will no longer be a lovely benefit of visiting my relatives in the Midwest, but something I can indulge in every summer.  I rarely see hoards of them anywhere, just a few little flashes here and there, but then I did a firefly outreach program at work on Saturday evening.  There were hundreds out!  They were flying over the prairie, lighting up little patches of grass every few seconds and it was absolutely magical.  So, I packed up my camera and went back the next evening to try to get a shot that captured the wonder of that spectacle.  It was raining and my camera has some serious grain issues when I try to photograph things in low light, so I never did get the crisp photo I had hoped to get.  This was the best I could manage:

Fireflies

Still, every one of those yellow-green lights is a firefly, and those represent about a third of the fireflies flying over that one patch of prairie.  That patch was about 1/10th of the total area I could see, so multiply what you see here by about 30 in your mind for the full effect!  It was amazing.  One of the best nature moments of my life, truly and utterly beautiful.

In other news, I am seriously upgrading my camera gear!  As of tomorrow, I will have two new camera bodies (a Nikon AND a Canon this time) and a new lens (Canon MP-E 65!!!), so prepare to be inundated by bug photos as I play around with my new toys over the next few weeks.  Maybe I’ll even try the firefly photo again with the new gear and see if I can improve on the photo above!

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