Firefly symphony

Come with me to the woods at dusk. Bring a chair, find a quiet place. Sit, and let the night close around us. Feel the quiet. A few fireflies blink on. As the darkness deepens, the light from the fireflies brightens, until the fireflies are the light. We have darkness, and we see twinkling points of firefly light. We look around us, and see thousands of fireflies, like stars in the desert, except, unlike the stars which occupy a two dimensional distant ceiling, the fireflies surround us, they are next to us, flitting by us, as far away as we can see, and every space in between.

Now the wondrous happens. A section of fireflies blink together, then in another area another section begins to blink in sychrony, but not with the first group. The orchestra is tuning up. The "violin" section stops acting as individual players and becomes a group, as do the "woodwinds" over toward the hill. Each group plays its twinkle light song, then rests, and their sections return to black for several seconds. Adjacent groups work into rhythm with each other, so their dark times are the same. After several minutes of tuning up, the entire firefly orchestra plays together. Twinkle, twinkle, four seconds, then four seconds of dark, then light again, as the woods becomes a fairy land. Have we time- traveled to Christmas? A car drives by and ruins the rhythm. The beautiful blackness is gone. But the car light passes, and then the tuning starts again. First the section to our left, then the group out in front regain their synchrony. In my head (but Only in my head) I hear the accompanying music. It is a Bach Brandenburg concerto, rich and pure. The sections play their parts, then together find the music, and soon the whole woods is back to singing in symphony. Darkness, darkness, twinkle lights, dark. Wonderful!!!

Pete and I drove up to Elkmont in Smokey Mt. Nat Park in mid June to watch the synchronous fireflies. We had read about this phenomenon, but this was the first time we had dragged ourselves to the park at night to see them. Fireflies are synchronous only at Elkmont and in Malaysia. It is not understood why these two areas are the only places where this has been seen. The synchronous firelies at Elkmont were only first reported in 1991, by a woman staying in one of the nearby cabins. Best viewing time is reported to be in mid June (firefly mating season), but some years they continue their show through July.