Fireflies in California!

While it is generally pleasant that here in California we seem to have fewer insects than on the East Coast where I grew up, one thing I do miss are the fireflies that would come out around July 4th.  Wandering around just after sunset you would see these little yellowish lights blinking on briefly then off again.

These were just "normal" fireflies, not like the synchronized ones of Southeast Asia and apparently the Great Smoky Mountains.  Still there's something magical about them.  And, just like Dunkin Donuts, they don't seem to exist on the West Coast.  Surfing the web, I have found people who claimed that long ago at various locations in the West they did see fireflies.  Who knows how reliable those accounts are, but I've also heard that there are fireflies in California, but most of them don't glow as adults.

So imagine my surprise when the other evening around dusk I caught a glimpse of something glowing in the air just outside the sliding door of my house here in the Bay Area.  A Bay Area firefly?  Couldn't be!

So, I went outside to where I thought I had seen the glowing object.  I didn't see anything at first, but then I felt something brush against my fingers.  I looked down and saw an insect tumble onto the ground.  I managed to find it and picked it up again.  It looked like a cross between a soldier beetle and the fireflies we used to see in the Baltimore area.

And sure enough after a few seconds, it started to emit a faint glow!  I was so excited - I called my wife to come and take a look, and I thought to myself, "Boy, I have to write about this on the Internet!"  There it was, a firefly whose light I could see blinking faintly on and off right in the palm of my hand outside my house in California.

And then I woke up.  Darn, I guess there are no fireflies in my backyard here.  But at least I did remember to write about it though.