Hikers brushed past tall grass as darkened tree branches hung over their heads. It was past 9 p.m., but the sky remained painted with shades of blue, pink and purple. That’s what happens when the Licking Park District hosts a night hike on the summer solstice.
But the longest day of the year didn’t stop the fireflies from fluttering out from between the blades of grass and flickering in the sunset-lit sky during the firefly themed night hike at Infirmary Mound Park on June 20.
The Licking Park District night hike kicked off as hikers gathered near the equestrian arena, water bottles in hand. Anne Balogh, the program manager for the Licking Park District, welcomed hikers with a lesson on lightning bugs.
“So when we’re talking about fireflies, this is probably what you’re familiar with, right?” Balogh asked the hikers as she held up a picture of an Eastern Firefly, a black winged insect with a glowing yellow tail.
Then Balogh revealed a photo of a blue caterpillar-like insect, the firefly larva. Balogh encouraged hikers to watch their step so as to not crush the bright blue larva.
“If we want the pretty sparkly things, sometimes we have the not-so-cute things,” Balogh said.
Shortly following the lesson on lightning bugs, hikers followed Balogh through the woods of Infirmary Mound Park, on a mission to find fireflies.
While finding fireflies may still be easy today, their numbers have been diminished in recent years – so much so that this generation may be the last to see these wonders of the night.
“They’re a group of species that’s declining, and we have a lot of them in our parks, so we like to feature them,” Balogh said.
The Licking Park District hosts many programs for Licking County residents, including storytime for preschoolers, paddle-boarding lessons, nature-themed art classes and night hikes.
The night hikes provide the rare opportunity for residents to explore the parks after hours. Not all of the Licking Park District Night Hikes have themes, but the firefly education provided on this special night hike informed hikers about fun facts, such as how fireflies communicate through their bioluminescent light.
“The cool thing is, they all have different blinking patterns, so they’re communicating with each other,” Balogh said.
For the Eastern Firefly, each glow of yellow light is a “blink.” The Eastern Firefly blinks its light in the shape of a J as it flies, according to Balogh.
Early in the hike, the still-shining sun kept the fireflies at bay, but the setting sun didn’t stop other wildlife from making appearances.
Night hiker Desiree Music, for example, encountered a surprise in the tall grass.
“I couldn’t tell what it was, and I got a little closer, and there was a deer bedded down, and she popped up and looked at me and just took off running,” Music recounted.
As the hikers traversed well-worn paths under a canopy of trees blocking out what little sunlight was left, hikers heard birds chirping from all angles.
Balogh encouraged hikers to use the “Merlin” app, a bird-identifying app created by the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology, to see which birds decided to visit hikers on their journey. Hikers pressed record and watched as the app recognized nearby birds by their singing.
“It’s very good at listening and telling you what you’re hearing, and it’ll highlight (the bird) as they sing,” Balogh said.
After listening to the chirps and tweets of song sparrows, eastern towhees, red-winged black birds and yellow warblers, hikers ventured past croaking frogs and families fishing in a still, mirror-like lake.
That’s when a hiker spotted the first one. A quick flash of dim yellow light, and the flutter of tiny black wings. Then another flash, and another, and another.
Young hikers raced to the flashes and stretched their hands toward the fluttering wings and flashing lights in hopes of catching one of the fireflies. When a hiker was lucky enough to have a firefly land in their hands, other hikers would crowd around to watch the glowing yellow light flicker.
By 10 p.m., sunlight still eked through the trees as the hike came to an end. Hikers surrounded the same fire pit where the night hike began near the equestrian arena. Fireflies continued to dance through the sky as hikers grabbed marshmallows and roasting sticks from a nearby picnic table to make s’mores – a special end to another successful Licking Park District event, according to Emily Fouts, the Licking Park District Program coordinator.
Fouts helps plan programs and events for the park district, taking part in fun events that also educate residents about the effects of big-picture environmental issues like the decline of fireflies. It’s the reason Fouts pursued environmental science in the first place.
“It’s kind of sad how fireflies are declining, and a lot of insects and pollinators are declining. So I think it’s really important to educate, especially the younger generation, about the world around them, so they can learn to appreciate it. And, hopefully, the future will be better,” Fouts said.
For more information about Licking Park District Events such as the night hikes, visit its website at https://www.lickingparkdistrict.com/.
Maddie Luebkert writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Katie Nader and Tyler Thompson contributed reporting.
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