Emblems of a season unseen

Much unmentioned life along Little Crum Creek moves unseen in the cloak of night.

That partly explains the appeal of fireflies, whose silent lights beside the water draw me raptly to the dark yard through June and July.

This year’s first lights appeared at the end of May as single, unheralded flickers that would reach their numbered peak a month later.

Now, near the end of July,  yellow-green lights barely dot the air above the creekside.

But the season’s variety of flashing patterns and colors here has suggested the presence of several different species of lightning bugs along the banks.

Many emit a single light every 3-4 seconds, tracing a yellow “J”  low to the ground or dotting the trees high above.

Some flash 3 times, others 12, as they cross the night.

Some light twice per second in the rhythm of a heartbeat.

Others emit a startling, 5-pulse pattern like a strobe.

And a few sail elegantly through space on single horizontal trails of greenish light.

Pinpointing the different species, though, can be tough. And Firefly Watch, out of Boston’s Museum of Science, provides some useful resources to help people try.

For now, I’m just impressed with the simple fact of bioluminescence and the quiet attention it inspires.

So, here, I simply open the camera to share what the fireflies themselves are writing in the night.

Inspired by blogs like Nature Posts  and Hawthorne Valley, each of these pictures captures an 8-15 second period of time during which most bugs will flash multiple times while passing through a single frame.

By the photos alone, we might trace the flashing patterns of several individuals.

So I leave you with these primitive shots (whose lights look better when clicked to enlarge), that I too might be quiet again, and return my attention to those silent emblems of all that’s left unseen & unsaid along the creek.

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