11 May 2011

news flash

It is 61F, humid and dead still tonight with no moon (it will rise about 2:00 a.m.). Mrs. Fuzzy was taking the compost out a few minutes ago and saw, she reported, fireflies. Mr. Fuzzy proceeded apace to the veranda and confirmed said observation. There were only a few and they were, most unusually, very high off the ground, maybe 40 feet or more judging by the silhouettes of the tree line.

Your most humble correspondent has never, ever , in his 60-plus years, seen fireflies before the very end of May - and more typically they have made their seasonal debut in June.

Most unusual. Might this be an augur?

[Mr. Fuzzy rarely posts without photographically illustrating the text and has an abiding faith that the good readers will allow him an exception this once.]

1 comment:

Anna said...

We had extremely early lightning bugs here in southwest Virginia this year too. I can't remember when they started --- two weeks ago, maybe?

Anyway, the thing I really wanted to comment on is your note on their location, high in the trees. There are many different species of lightning bugs, and they have slightly different flash patterns, different times of night that they like to come out, different color lights, and different habitats. A few enjoy being at the tree top level. Perhaps an early species moved into your neighborhood that hadn't been there before?