Firefly Watch

I participated in an ongoing citizen science project over the summer. Firefly Watch was formerly run by Boston’s Museum of Science, but was run by Massachusetts Audubon this summer, my first with the program. The goal is to monitor firefly populations by counting the number of flashes in three periods of ten seconds. Colors and flash patterns, as well as date, time, weather conditions, and site conditions are all recorded. I signed up for this because fireflies were always a highlight of the summer when I was a kid, and later when my own kid was little. 

Having been away from my ancestral home for a decade, I had no knowledge of local population trends other than my mom telling me she never sees fireflies anymore. That was disturbing to hear. So twice a week I went to my parents’ house starting in late May to see if they had any fireflies left. The first ones showed up on Memorial Day, right about when I remember them first arriving. They were few and far between for the first two weeks or so and peaked around the 4^th of July. I decided to keep up the watch until I had two consecutive shut outs, and expected to be done the first week of September. 

However, the last firefly I recorded was on September 24^th, later than I’ve ever seen one. In fact, I only remember seeing them in September once before, and they came a month late that year. To top it all off, I saw another on September 28^th during the day while away from home. However, to be consistent I only counted observations at one site. To me, it isn’t helpful to track population trends if I am not tracking at the same location, at least in this case. For something larger with a wider range I would, but these little guys don’t roam very far. Since this was my first field season I have no data to compare with, but I plan on being back. Hopefully all I’ll see is positive trends!

Feel free to sign up for Firefly Watch next year!