Sunday, June 28, 2009

Fireflies

I took a little blogging hiatus! It wasn't planned. We got busy and my battery charger for my camera disappeared.

I took a few pictures of fireflies the other night. Since we don't have any on the West coast....at least none of the places I have ever lived...thought some of you might like to know what they look like! :)
Obviously, it is not easy to take pictures of fireflies. They come out at dusk/dark and they fly. Their "glow" is really more like a spark. So they are twinkling all over the place....only for a split second. Catching them when it is dark is really fun because their light goes out and you have to try and find them. We have bazillions of them around our house and especially in the front yard for some reason. We catch them and collect as many as we can in our bug catcher. They don't really light up when they aren't flying, so it's kind of disappointing to be carrying around this entire container of them and none of them are glowing. When we're done we open the lid and they all crawl to the top and fly away. It's been our evening routine and the kids' favorite excuse to stay up late!
Here are the bugs!

This is what they look like when they aren't flying


you can see the underside of one on the inside of the container. See how his little rear-end is white-ish? That's the part that glows!
Now you know. :)

4 comments:

rachel said...

i had no idea what fireflies looked like. i love their little beady red eyes!

nana said...

i love that brennie and wyatt have such a great excuse to stay up late! they will have wonderful memories of summers in PA.....

Amy said...

I am cracking up that fireflies (which, by the way, I grew up calling "lightning bugs") are such a big deal! I thought they were everywhere. Little did I know what a treasure I had as a little kid in Pennsylvania! Glad the boys are enjoying catching them. I have many great memories of running around my neighborhood with friends trying to catch them too. :)

Anonymous said...

You should have tied them on a fly line and casted into a lake or pond, I bet the fish love them.
Uncle Bubba