Thank you for all the help! I have had better luck searching the internet using "lightning bug" not "fireflies" thanks to the posts here. One great discussion was at an arthritis forum - of all places! I've learned that they've already been seen in Southwest Missouri. Are they still around in mid September?

A few years ago, we were planning a June camping trip to the Harry Truman Reservoir in Missouri. We chose "The Last Resort Campground" in Warsaw, Missouri and I asked "Do you have fireflies - I'm from Oregon and I have never seen one." He assured me that they were plentiful. A couple of months passed between making the reservation and actually taking the trip but when we were checking out the manager of the campground asked, "Did you get to see a firefly?" We saw them, caught them, and generally found the whole experience to be everything I'd hoped for.

We also saw them in abundance at East Harbor State Park (I think that's the right name) in northwestern Ohio - right near Lake Erie.

A few years back, we were in Williamsburg in late May. There were plenty of fireflies, much to our delight! Our daughters chased them for hours, (with mom and dad right behind...). WE even found a cute "lantern" for collecting them- it came with a net- at a toy store.

They made lots of friends with that lantern, especially in Gettysburg- where there were lots of other kids from firefly-lacking states.

Fireflies or lightning bugs are out in full force in middle Tennessee--I've been seeing them where I live outside of Nashville for about a week. They'll peak in about 2 weeks and slowly begin to disappear over the next 3-6 weeks.

Wow..

Here I thought lightning bugs were all across the country. I used to catch them as a kid in WI. One time I had a backyard campout with some friends and we caught a bunch and let them go in our tent. Entertainment all night! I must admit we did smush some to see the result.....

Now I am in the suburbs of Chicago and I always have plenty in my yard during the summer. I never really noticed a peak time but it is too cool right now.

Lots of fireflies here in NJ. They are just beginning to show this year. In fact, my daughter found one in the house this week probably brought in by one of the dogs. I remember as a child how we used to catch them in the evening and put them in jars with holes punched in the top. We'd keep them in our bedrooms at night to watch them flash and then release them in the morning. Gosh, what sweet memories.

We have fireflies here in Upstate NY (Syracuse area suburbs). Mid June is the correct time to find them. I love them. The best places to see them is in the country. They are plentiful in fields of grass. We have all kinds of other bugs too if you're intereted :-)

In Chicagoland they are dense in summer. I also never think of them as waning, because every hot summer night they abound in great numbers- from just before the 4th of July holiday until after Labor Day.

If you glance at a street, yard, or field anywhere in my locale you would see such numbers that it looks like stars in the skies over Montana- yet all blinking.

As a child I was raised on a block of 40 houses that held over 260 children at one time. We were in the Sun-Times as the most kids on one block, with pictures.

You would not want to know what boys did with lightening bugs on my block. Just know that their light is chemical and stays on long after being "detached."

My grandkids all have both homemade and "store-bought" bug containers for chasing and storing. Although this soft hearted generation always releases, they do on occasion keep and feed Praying Mantis and other nifty insects.

You don't have grasshoppers? We do.

We are being overrun by birds also. We have so many different that I'm starting to feel paranoid- aka Hitchcock. I'm starting to pass heron in numbers, just on the way to work. Four in one 2 or 3 acre pond yesterday. Geese and duck are in such numbers that they are starting to become a nuisance.

years ago i was traveling across country from AZ to MA and our first stop was in MI .It was daylight when we got to the motel.Then later i had to take my small dog outside for a nature call and omg there were millions of lightnin bugs.The dog went nuts jumping at them and barking too.lol i sat outside in awwww for a half hour or so it was cool

Interesting thread. It acutally makes me appreciate fireflies more knowing that some places don't have them. I live in Cincinnati (southern Ohio) and we have tons of them. Not sure of the exact timing, but they seem to be around all summer!

One of the hundreds of reasons I will never leave true seasons. Something different all the time, nature's magic. It can be SUCH an adventure as you never quite know, and it's certainly never boring. Our 17 year locust seasons are hard to describe as well. The noise is something you never forget.

In MI at my lake it seems some days I am time warped at Disney's "It's Tough to be a Bug", as it is dragonflies with blue or green shine all day, and lightening bugs all night. Of course there are those mosquitoes, beetles galore and yellow jackets in numbers as well, but in recent years all have been staying in their forest areas and have been manageable. I have swans, herons, egrets, turtles, frogs and one HUGE raccoon all within a couple hundred feet.

The raccoon is starting to bother me somewhat, as he uses my top deck for a transit every evening down to the water. He walks right in front of the door. I just don't want to meet him by accident. In IL I had one dig right through my kitchen roof/transit area. Their claws are like knives with claw hammer strength.

We had a game growing up on my block in the city. As soon as the street lights flashed on, you would have to catch a lightening bug and then touch the sidewalk and yell "First to see the streetlights come on." That gave you dibs on calling the night games to follow. I hated when MaryBeth would win because it meant a whole hour of playing statue-maker. I hated statue-maker- too much standing still for me.
I can't believe that was 50 plus years ago now. Time goes too quick.

Growing up in OR, I never saw them. Thankfully our moving all over the country let me experience them as an adult at least! I remember them in GA and upstate NY. In NY our kids were old enough to enjoy them and I still remember the looks on their faces when they would hold one. Precious!

In West Virginia, where I grew up, they're everywhere! Tons of them. Lots of them here in Maryland, too. I never realized that parts of the country don't have them. They're a major childhood memory! Just the thought of them brings to mind the smell they leave on your hands, a smell quite unlike anything else. We, too, called them lightning bugs, as another poster mentioned.

I can remember going to my grandparents in Atlanta when we were young and chasing them, catching them, etc. Great memories!

neworleansnell - I wish we still had them around here, but I've never seen any. I actually thought I saw one last weekend, but decided my eyes must have been deceiving me! :-B

My brothers (growing up in St. Louis and outside Chicago) would collect lightning bugs in a jar, take them to their room and let them free inside! Then they'd lie there in the dark and watch them fly around. My mom never found out, so I guessed they all eventually escaped before they died.

neworleanslady

Maybe I should have said it was about 35 (give or take a few years) ago. Actually I grew up in Metairie maybe it was a suburb thing. I live in Houston now but still claim New Orleans as home! Boy do I ever miss the boiled crabs!

I say the first fireflies of the year here in SC two nights ago. Takes you right back to being a kid.

Growing up in Wisconsin, & now living in the NW suburbs of Chicago, lightening bugs are usually most plentiful in the hotest days of August. The past few years, I have seen them come out starting in atleast mid-july, if not early July, especially if the weather gets hotter than normal. I get quite a few of them in my back & front yards. When you see the bugs, actually a type of beetle, during the day, you would never really suspect that those are the bugs that light up at night. If you are driving down Hwy 41 or I-294 in northern Illinois on a hot July or August night, you can see them all along the sides of the roads near the fields, & woods, & around ponds. But the problem is that the time of year when the lightening bugs are out is also prime time for mosquitoes. (All the times I have been to the east coast of Maryland, have never seen a mosquito there.)

neworleansnell - Small world. I lived in Kenner as a kid and went to school in Metarie (Kehoe France). I know we had fireflies in NO when I was there, though what I remember most bug-wise are the "lovebugs" that attached to each other and were plastered all over my parents cars!!

I didn't realize how much I had missed them until I moved back to "firefly country" from California. Parents from non-firefly states: there is another good reason to bring your kids to Washington DC in June, besides learning about their government and heritage. I've never seen such great firefly shows as in my back yard here in the Virginia suburbs of Washington. At times, it's like someone has laid a sparkling carpet of them over the trees and bushes.

They seem to like a damp, humid environment, which is probably why they thrive here in the Mid-Atlantic States and don't in the low humidity of the West. Here, I've noticed they are most numerous on nights when it's rained in the late afternoon or early evening.