How to help fireflies this fall and winter
Pick one:
Select an option above
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Get a little lazy!
Stop mowing a corner of the lawn.
One corner of your yard, ideally somewhere a little damp and a little shaded. See what native plants spring up!
Make sure whoever sprays your yard, if anyone, leaves that corner alone.
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Make a mess on purpose!
Put some old sticks in a pile.
Make what's called a brush pile, the perfect habitat for overwintering fireflies. Do it somewhere out of sight if you're worried about looks.
Same thing here: just make sure it doesn't get sprayed.
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Just skip the spray (during fall and winter)
Firefly larvae are living in the soil and leaf litter right now, and pesticide goes straight into that. They'll never make it.
Some pest control plans will spray all the way until winter. Best move is to tell them to stop for the season right now. Second best move, call your company and ask them to:
(1)ONLY spray absolutely necessary areas for pest control
(2)DO NOT spray any fallen leaves, sticks, mulch, stumps, or moist ground, especially cool humid spots under trees or shrubs.
(3)Spray early in the morning, when adult fireflies are not out.
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Flip a switch, save a buck!
Unplug the outside lights you do not really need.
Especially anything decorative, like tree lights. Fireflies talk to each other with light, and outdoor lighting drowns out the conversation.
That's the short version, and any of those things will help. But if you want, check out the big boy moves.
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Stop the pesticides
Not just the fall treatment. Fireflies spend up to two years growing up in the soil and leaf litter, so anywhere that gets sprayed is somewhere they are not coming back from. In most yards that means the whole yard.
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Leave the leaves where they fall
In the beds, under the shrubs, along the fence. That layer is where firefly larvae spend the winter, along with a lot of moths and butterflies. Whatever can stay, let it stay.
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Pile up whatever you do clear
The leaves you rake off the lawn, and the sticks. Put them in a pile at the edge of the yard, under a tree or a shrub, instead of out at the curb. Same habitat, just gathered in one place.
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Deal with the outside lights
Unplug anything decorative. Put the rest on a timer, or shield them so the light points down instead of up. Fireflies talk to each other with light, and outdoor lighting drowns out the conversation.
Bonus: it helps birds too. Most songbirds migrate at night and navigate by the stars, and outdoor lighting pulls them off course.
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Plant a tree or a shrub
Fall is the right time to plant. Shade holds the moisture firefly larvae need, and it blocks some light pollution at the same time.
Make it a native one and it feeds most of the rest of the yard too. Waystation will tell you which ones do the most where you live.
Why act now
The fireflies you will see next July are already in the ground.
By then they will have spent up to two years as larvae in the soil and the leaf litter, hunting slugs and snails, glowing quietly down there the whole time.
So a yard is not somewhere fireflies visit. It is where they are made. Anything that happens to the top few inches of it, over the fall and winter, decides what comes back in summer.
Source: the Xerces Society, which names habitat loss, light pollution and pesticide use as the most serious threats to fireflies.
Further reading
Who put this up
A neighbor. Not a company, not a group, and nobody is selling anything here. There are no ads on this site and it does not collect anything about you.
All I want is for people to be aware of what is going on, and of what affects things ecologically.