Lampyridae Hunting

Every summer, the children carefully watch the yard at dusk.  The evening that they finally see the twinkling lights floating magically in the air, the summer firefly hunting season begins.  We rush to get dinner eaten before the evening light show.  The children follow, chase and catch as many of the flying bugs as they can.  The younger children giggle at the tickle of the bugs crawling in their hands and the older children help put each new capture into the jar with minimal escaping of earlier bugs.  The final count is always a goal to beat the next night.  Occasionally I use the firefly bug hunting time to wash the dinner dishes in a quiet child-free house, but usually I sit on the porch and watch as my small children happily run alongside their siblings who are usually too busy to play childhood games.  When the twinkling lights have moved high in the trees, the sweaty, grass-stained children come inside for baths and jammies.  Just before bed, the jar is opened and the imprisoned lightning bugs flutter away until the next evening.  More than once, a jar has been opened inside the house and the hunt has taken on a more urgent catch and release OUTSIDE tone.  The occasional house and jar casualty aside, lampyridae or flirefly hunting is one of our favorite summer activities.  Does your family catch fireflies?  Frogs?  Ladybugs?  Or does this post make your skin crawl?

Comments

[Nick Friedman]

Cathy:

Love the headline of your post!

[Beth]

Hey Cathy,

I'm glad to know families still enjoy this age-old activity. I can remember doing this with my older brothers when I was growing up. The lightning bugs were ALWAYS amazing, no matter how many times I had seen them up close. Thank you for writing such a wonderful description. I'm going to read it to my students tomorrow and find out how many of them have done this with their families while encouraging the ones that haven't to try it.

Beth

[bananas]

that is sooo very cool. I wish we had fireflies in this area. Actually, I don't know if I've ever really even seen a firefly. There's something so magical about the way you describe it!

[Katrina @ Callapidder Days]

Oh this brings back the memories!! I did this all the time as a kid.

Now, my kids get up so early in the morning, that when evening comes, they're often in the house and winding down before the fireflies come out. I hope to chase them back outside a couple times this summer to experience a little bit of this magic!

[Lynnie]

I will never ever ever forget the first time my oldest daughter caught a firefly! I had been trying for many minutes to get one to no avail. It was getting dark, of course, and hard to see them when they weren't lit up. Then suddenly, my daughter's arm shot out to grab one and almost instantaneously her whole hand lit up from the light of this magical insect! But I think her face lit up even more! She was so full of delight and started running around showing it to someone. Someone ran in to get her a sweet little blue jar with a lid to keep it in for a bit.