June! It's Lightnin' Bug Time! In the Suburbs..Kids Don't Seem to Care!

[KoKo]

I couldn't wait for June when I grew up..it was rural America. But, June in the Southeast followed the Bee Invasion of May where swarms of buzzers were all over the wisteria, banana plants (who remembers what they were) the Langustrums, Flowering Almonds and the many plants who had fragrences before they were forced to be "hybrids" disease resistent and lost their great smells. June was for Roses and Mimosa and Lighting Bugs whose flashers fascinated me as a kid.

I caught them in jars and kept them in my bedroom overnight watching them flash...until the guilt got to me that they were "trapped in that jar" and I would sneak out and let them go on their night way because I didn't want to "hurt" them and have them lose their lovely light.

I've lived in a Suburban Neighborhood back in the South for 12 years. Not once have I seen kids out at night with jars...trying to catch those little those little blinking lights, or in the day catching bees (another unfortunate hobby of mine when I was about 8-10 years old). I don't see kids in my neighborhood out at night, period. I don't really see bees anymore either. But there are still a few of the hardy Lightinin's around which my cats on the screened porch seem to view with the same wonder I did when I was a kid.

Is this typical? Where you live do kids celebrate Spring into Summer looking for these things? And what about the "Mocking Birds" that sing until they find a mate. One of those was out even after dark tonight singing every bird song it knows...looking for that fair one before it's silenced.

I hope someone else has seen better than I have. Or, maybe we don't need that stuff anymore. :shrug:

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

1. I love them, too

I also do not see children chasing lightning bugs very often (although I did see some neighbor girls doing so last year). We used to love to catch them and let them go. My husband and I always look for them when on our strolls 'round the neighborhood.

[Lorien]

2. I miss lightning bugs

Since i moved South, I haven't seen them in years. :-(

No, I don't think kids care about nature at all these days. They stay inside and watch TV or play video games. The only kids I know that are the exception don't have video games or cable, and their parents own a very small television (They spend most of their days outside). I don't see the kids in my neighborhood except when they are walking home from school.

[laruemtt]

3. dh and i went out back last night &

lay down on a blanket to watch lightning bugs. they were everywhere! i still love watching them and love seeing all the bunnies in the yard. they're so sweet! i think they know we have a guinea pig - guinea pigs protect rabbits by scaring off predators with their squeals. my little 7-year-old nephew who visited here from NY last summer asked if the bunnies were still out, so at least there's one little boy who still gets it...

[susanna]

4. That brought back memories!!!

I grew up in the north, but spent many summers with Grandma and the extended family in bama-lama. (My parents tell me that is how I said it before I could pronounce Alabama.)

Lightnin' bugs were the best thing going in June. Come to think of it, they were probably the ONLY thing going thereabouts...

I'd sit and watch them over at my great-aunt's until they made me come inside for bed (way too early). Great Aunt Kay had the best garden...but she wouldn't let me catch the bugs, or if she did, she'd make me let them go before bed. She was a big softie.

Yes, we still need that stuff. I get lightnin' bugs up here (Michigan) but no one seems to think they're a big thing. That's okay. I know the truth. :-)

[MuseRider]

5. My kids caught them

as did I as a child. I don't see many kids out at all anymore. Here in Kansas I live just outside the city limits in an area that used to be "country". We can still walk outside during some summer months and be in total darkness and there are so many lightning bugs that it is psychedelic, almost disorienting. The last few years have been so dry that we have not had too many and bees have gone too. I saw a few honey bees this spring and hoped they would make a comeback but I have not seen any for a while. Our weather patterns have changed and it seems many other things are beginning to change too. It is sad.

[tridim]

10. Kansas seemed to be a haven for lightning bugs

I think there were some years my friends and I would chase lightning bugs every night during the summer, it was almost like a sport. Good times.

[FreedomReload]

6. My Friends And I Used To Hit Them With Baseball Bats.

Please forgive our cruelty.

[ironflange]

27. I thought that's what frogs are for!

:evilfrown:

[cestmoi]

7. "The world is too much with us,

Getting & spending we lay waste our power
And little we see in nature that is ours."

That's from one of my favourite poems by Wordswoth. I think its profoundly sad that kids are so disconnected from nature and don't experience the mystery that you describe.

[samhonk]

8. West of the Rockies boy here...

I never saw a firefly until I was over 20. Once I did, though, I made up for lost time and ran around catching them in a hotel water glass. I found out that if I took them to my room, shut the lights off, then turned the lights on and off again once really quick, all the flies would flash once together. Barrel of fun, those fireflies. (I did let 'em go later, I agree it's a shame to keep such a thing bottled up.)

[izzie]

9. My kids and I also did it.

My kids and I also spent hours hunting toads. Maybe they are just to smart to day.

[LizW]

11. June bugs were always my favorite

They're beautiful. They're big, shiny bugs with gold undersides and greenish/purplish irridescent backs. They don't bite or sting and you can hold them in your hands and play with them without accidently squishing them.

They're delightfully tickly when they crawl on you. Their legs are STRONG, too. You can hold them in your cupped hands and they can push their way out between your fingers. They love blackberries and we would always find them around the blackberry thickets.

Do June bugs still exist in the country? I haven't seen one in 20 years. :(

[wroberts189]

19. Yes, They have been banging on my screens all night

attracted to the light

[Lisa]

12. fireflies and northern lights at the same time!

I worked in northern Ontario one summer, and while the landscape of the Hudson Bay Lowlands isn't terribly exciting (flat with lots of bugs!) I'll remember the midnight walks along the beach as long as I live.

Due to lawnmowers and pesticides, a lot of places that once had fireflies and June bugs seem to be missing their magic these days.

[aquart]

13. I saw them above the LIRR tracks once. Maybe a million?

I have no idea why they were there and nowhere else. Only above the tracks, more lightning bugs than I'd ever seen in my life, nowhere else in the station.

I saw it once, just once, never saw that again.

[qanda]

14. My kids, 6 and 8, are out every night catching lightning bugs

Every day they bring in a variety of critters from the outdoors and we look them up on the internet to see what they are. They've brought me so many bugs this year and it's keeping me busy doing bug research. Their last two finds were a brown widow spider (so glad they didn't get bitten) and a polyphemus moth (beautiful)

[Beaker]

15. the most fun you can have with a jarful of lightnin' bugs...

take it to the movies...open the jar, and put it under a seat down in front...

[Turanga Leela]

16. I have two little girls, ages 6 and 2.5...

And last weekend we saw the first lightning bugs of the season. They went ape----, running around after them. We got out mayonnaise jars and poked holes in the lids, just like the old days.

I'll be honest with you...the sentiment that I come across in these threads of a quasi-nostalgic "Today's kids suck, our childhoods were so much better" is just so much bullshit. Since the weather has gotten warmer, I literally can't keep my kids IN the house. Just this week, the kids in my neighborhood have

1. Learned how to roller-skate (kind of);

2. Played under the sprinkler in the backyard;

3. Spent three solid hours looking for salamanders and snails in a neighbor's backyard;

4. Colored every single sidewalk square on the entire block with chalk, including a hopscoth board;

5.Played hopscotch;

6. Ran relay races, played freeze tag, and a made-up game involving a kickball and two old brooms.

This is just the off-the-top-of my head list of the things I noticed them playing.

So, stop the grousing about the miserable state of childhood today. Reports of its death have been GREATLY exaggerated.

[DrWeird]

17. I've never seen a lightning bug.

Never seen a cicada either. I guess you have to live back east?

[MissMillie]

18. I love lightning bugs

I used to try to catch them too.

I don't know that my son ever has.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

20. My kids and I hunt them every year... they love to do it

and so do I.

[amandae]

21. My kids were just asking about them tonight ...

They look forward to when they can see the lightening bugs (or fireflies, as we used to call them when I was a kid up North). They were just asking tonight when they would see them again :) We have a small section of trees behind our house so we're hoping they'll decide to hang around in our backyard this year!

ahhh, the simple pleasures of life!

:hi:

[Liberal Classic]

22. Saw some last night out walking the dog

Was kind of nice.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

25. Jesus. You have really BIG lightening bugs where you live

Mine could never walk a flea, much less a dog!

[Lefty48197]

23. I've always enjoyed a good lightning bug "punt"

If you kick them hard enough, they glow as they arc upward and then fall into the grass and continue glowing.

[tigereye]

24. my son likes them

we do try to get out in the air more in the summer.. have to limit the video watching and lever him away from the screen. We also go to the pool a lot, too. When I was a kid we were out all day long until it was dark. Our mom would just turf us all out of the house.

[Reciprocity]

26. I am looking at some now as I write this.

DH and I used to be National Park Ranger in Missouri, at night the entire park would light up from the biggest lighting bugs you have ever seen. For one of my evening programs we would do night walks along the trails by the river .I never tired of seeing the expressions on the kids faces as I would give my little talk on these magnificent creatures.

One of the reasons you may not see them anymore or not as many, is because Fireflies require a moist habitats. Also Fireflies require decaying logs to complete their life cycle.

[ironflange]

28. I've never ever seen a firefly

But I used to get hummingbirds at my old house, three kinds, and they were great fun to watch in early summer. Then the little old lady down the way with the butterfly garden moved away, and shortly thereafter so did the buzzy birds. I moved from there three years ago, and I still miss the warm evenings watching the crazy little birds crash into each other.