FIREFLIES, OWLS AND FROGS

The fireflies, the Great Horned Owls, the frogs, the bats, and the bluebirds all tell a story at the Sanctuary. The story is of a space with minimal land disturbance, minimal environmental poisons and minimal light pollution. Generally, fireflies take two to three years to become the magical flitting lights in the evening. Of course they are not lighting up just for you or me! To mature below ground they need to be undisturbed there for at least a summer season between their egg and their flight.

I wish I could share a photo of the fireflies in action, but this little corner of flowers is beautiful too!

We persist in treating the Sanctuary land with organic practices. There are minimal fly pyrethrins repellents on the mammal rescues, and minimal pyrethrins treatments on the bird rescues. We don’t use herbicide and pesticide sprays in our environment. When suburban spraying to fog yards for temporary depopulation of mosquitoes and ticks happens, all the insects in the area are affected (“good” and “bad”), and that reduces bird populations that relied on bugs to raise their young as well, and the poisons persist in the environment.

I don’t take our fireflies for granted because I grew up in Southern California and had never seen fireflies until I arrived in MA in 1997.  Every summer night when I head out for a final check of the Sanctuary, I pause at the nearby forest edge and admire the communications between the male and female fireflies. 

The many frogs, birds, bats, dragonflies and our recent local family of Great Horned Owls all remind me that conservation of the land here is an important part of what we do. I step out at night to see the fireflies and hear the owls, crickets, katydids, cicada, and frog in a natural symphony.

*(We use SenesTech Conntraceptol for rats and mice - not rodenticide poison that kill the predators as well. Conntraceptol sends rats and mice into menopause, letting the Great Horned Owl safely help us with further depopulation of rodent populations)

**(We use Arbico Organics’ Fly Predators each year to depopulate summer flies, instead of poisons.)