Fireflies in Southold
Surrounding Custer Observatory is a large field owned by the Town of South. In the last few weeks there has been a noticeable burst of activity in the field at dusk! Thousands of Fire Flies are in flight across the field at dusk looking for a mate! I am new to observing Fire Flies although I remember them from childhood. I never gave them the closer look that they deserved after capturing them and putting them in a jar. My only goal at that time was to watch the blinking of their soft light in the dark.
I recently became aware of a reported decline in our Fire Fly population and a Citizen Science project to keep track of Fire Fly populations across the United States. Seeing a friend, Steve Bellavia, post a photo of this night-time flurry of activity reminded me of the Citizen Science project and thought I should add the Custer location to the map of this project.
On subsequent nights I decided to try my hand at more night-time photography and photograph the soft light of the night-time flight of these fascinating childhood insects. At the same time I decided to catch some and put them in a large jar, something I have not done since I was young, only this time it was in the interest of science! I brought them indoors to photograph them and try to identify the species based on a photo ID page on on the Museum of Science's Firefly Watch website. According to their photos I had caught a Photorus firefly.
 |
| These fireflies produce a green light. In the sky is the constellation Scorpius and the straight blinking line in the sky is an airplane. |
 |
| These fireflies produce a green light. In the sky is the constellation Scorpius and you can see part of the Milky Way on the left side of the image. |
 |
| These fireflies produce a green light. In the sky is the constellation Scorpius, part of the Milky Way and the straight blinking line in the sky is an airplane. |
 |
| These fireflies produce a green light. In the sky is the constellation Scorpius and the straight blinking line in the sky is an airplane. |
 |
| These fireflies produce a green light. In the sky is the constellation Scorpius and the straight blinking line in the sky is an airplane. |
 |
| The Custer dome was rotating at the time of this timed exposure, a happy accident, so the dome opening appears larger then it is. |
