Counting Fireflies

& the art of attention

During a brief pause of the rain last night, Patrick and I sat out on our back patio. He has been tracking what we thought was a robin’s nest out there for a couple of weeks. Last night, we realized it actually belongs to cardinals when we saw a male and female flying back and forth collecting food.

One of the things I love about Patrick is how he notices things, especially birds. He pays a special kind of attention to their movements, behaviors, and routines that I would otherwise miss.

So together, for more than an hour, we listened to the sounds of crows in the distance, spotted robins in the branches of our cherry tree, and observed mom and dad cardinal gathering food (perhaps for small chicks in the nest though we can’t get close enough to see if the eggs have hatched for sure).

As it neared dusk and the chickens marched themselves into the coop for the evening, we spotted the first firefly.

Last week, I got an email from the Audubon Society looking for volunteers who have planted native species in their yards to participate in the Community Firefly Watch this year. They believe native plants and ecosystems may help sustain and revive lighting bug populations, but they’re still gathering data.

Every year, people from across the country form a citizen science community to count and record the fireflies they see from one spot in their yard or a nearby green space.

I’ve lived in this house for four years now and I’ve never seen fireflies like we have in the past couple of weeks. It’s exactly one year after we converted part of our lawn into a Backyard Habitat.

For our first count last night, we turned off our outdoor lights and Patrick and I stood at the edge of the tree line sloping down into the woods. We counted flashes of light in ten second bursts. We went back inside just before the rain started again, but from the front window I could see fireflies too—drifting between the goldenrod and the jacob’s ladder in our habitat.

Like many people who grew up watching/catching/admiring fireflies I have fond memories of them: in my Uncle’s backyard in Germantown, walking around the agricultural fields in Les Cayes, and now right in my backyard.

Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in Braiding Sweetgrass:

“paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving its gifts with open eyes and an open heart.”

I think it’s also a gift we give to one another. Birds, fireflies, food, music, colors, language, details of a conversation. When we witness something and share it, it can be a gift to someone else too. It’s actually a bit of a superpower, I think. Patrick’s notices birds, I notice fireflies.

How lovely if we could all share attention for something that someone else may have missed.

What calls especially to your attention?

Or what has someone else called to your attention that you might have missed?

For those keeping track from last month’s newsletter, I’ve also made some progress with my sticker-xiety.

A couple of weeks ago, I pulled all of the stickers I could find out of their hiding spots (which led to additional tidying of drawers, folders, craft baskets etc.) and laid them out on my dining room table.

I made three piles:

1. give to my friend’s kids

2. keep to display

3. keep to use

My cat Zèb was little help, though he tried.

I have photo evidence that my friend’s kids made quick use of their stickers which was a delight to see. The displayed stickers look lovely above my desk and bring me joy instead of guilt. And, with the third pile, my plan is to be less precious—to stick them in my journal or send them away in letters with regularity and maybe even abandon.

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What I’m loving right now:

• The Bear (on Hulu)

• Barkeeper’s Friend (to get stains out of pots! Thanks to The Bear)

• Mass Audubon Firefly Watch (Citizen Science Project)

• The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery (nonfiction book)

• The Truth about Going Mega-Viral by Emily McDowell pt. 1 (Substack essay)

• I started early, took my dog by Emily Dicksinson (poem)