Sometime nature gifts us with magic – moments of surprised delight. A couple magical moments came my way in the last two weeks.
Stars in Tall Meadow Grass: Fireflies at Twilight
At dusk, in the still, warm nights of late June and early July, fireflies dance over and through the small meadow near our house in Oakland Township.
I took this short video to capture the moment. The beauty created by these tiny, seemingly invisible beetles always fills me with wonder. On sleepless nights, I even imagine the scene below in my mind to slow back down into sleep.
And this year, to my delight, my friend Aaron spotted a firefly in the daytime hours on our walk at Draper Twin Lake Park. I’d never see one in the sunlight before! I thought, “Ah, I should find out more and share what I learn with the readers at Natural Areas Notebook.”
I turned as usual to my mentor for insects, Gary Parsons, former Collections Director for the “Bug House,” or Albert J. Cook Arthropod Research Collection, at Michigan State University. Evidently, Photuris is the genus of the fireflies in the photos below and Michigan hosts 7 or 8 different almost identical species within that genus. These days it’s believed that the only distinction between them is the color and pattern of their flashing and even that isn’t completely reliable!
When fireflies dance, it’s usually the females who are signaling their presence to the males. It’s a bioluminescent signal created by a light-emitting organ at the tip of the female’s abdomen. Note the white patch on the firefly in the photo above right; that’s the “lantern” that she flashes in the twilight. It’s basically a “come-hither” signal. The Photuris signal is “usually a single or double flash and white/yellow in color.
Occasionally a Photuris female will flash the slightly different mating signal of a second smaller but very common genus of fireflies named Photinus. If a Photinus male is in the area and is lured by the signal, he becomes dinner for the female Photuris firefly! According to Gary Parsons, the Photinus light signal is more sustained and zooms upward like a comma.
But Parsons says it would be difficult to say just which one I saw on any given night – even for experts! One night I thought I only saw the short, white sparks of the Photuris in our meadow. On other nights, the sparks looked green and made a squiggle as they rose – perhaps Photinus? So despite the occasional femme fatale firefly, I’m choosing to assume that the fireflies in our meadow were enjoying a romantic interlude, rather than a snack before bedtime.
A Small “Resurrection” in a Restoring Prairie
July 1, at Stony Creek Ravine Nature Park, at the bottom of a gentle slope above a wetland, Dr. Ben VanderWeide, our township Stewardship Manager, came upon a dozen or so gorgeous native Michigan Lilies (Lilium michiganense) nodding in the sunshine. He thought he’d noticed struggling leaflets of this plant before at this spot, but never saw a bloom. Imagine his delight – and mine! – that restoration work done at the park plus a rainy June had brought the spectacular Michigan Lily out of the soil and back into the sunlight.
It must have grown wild there years ago, before farming covered the soil with agricultural grasses. Presumably, the Michigan Lilies’ persisted in the adjacent sedge meadow wetland and along the margins of the farm field for decades. Eventually the field was abandoned, but the non-native plants remained with nothing to stop their spread. Now, thanks to the stewardship crew’s prescribed fire and non-native plant removal over several years, plus a very wet June, up they came! Aren’t they glorious with their petals curving back and the huge dark anthers suspended below on bright yellow stamens? Butterflies and perhaps even hummingbirds will happily pollinate these beautiful flowers. And now we’re excited to see what else might rise back into the sunlight as restoration continues.
Insects with lanterns that dance in the night, bright lilies emerging from the earth after decades of waiting for light and moisture – that’s my kind of magic!