Wildbuzz: Twinkle twinkle little firefly, how I wonder where you are
Fireflies, lightning bugs, glow worms or ‘jugnoos’ are flying beetles characterised by rhythmic pulses of bioluminescence or the glow that emanates from their abdomens due to chemical reactions.
*It makes for a puzzling phenomenon. The City Beautiful is renowned for its dazzling greenery and bungalow gardens flashing exotic flowers. But it has ceased to host an abundance of fireflies. One does chance upon a furtive firefly here or there in the city’s heart but it’s about as rare as spotting the Paradise flycatcher in the gloom of January. Fireflies, lightning bugs, glow worms or ‘jugnoos’ are flying beetles characterised by rhythmic pulses of bioluminescence or the glow that emanates from their abdomens due to chemical reactions.
The muse of writers and poets, the late Harivansh Rai Bachhan’s poem, ‘Andheri raat mein deepak jalaye kaun baitha hai?”, evoked the wonder of these flying, guiding lights. Bachhan asks the stars as to who has lit these pulsating stars below, who has kindled the deepaks or diyas in the dark night. Or, to improvise upon a Kishore Kumar hit song: ‘Diye jalte hain, raat khilti hai, taare jaagte hain, khamoshi muskurati hai’. Once upon a time as the night deepened star by star in the cosmic dome, and as darkness crept upon a young city’s gardens, specks of living light would twinkle one by one. The jugnoos were the fairylights decorating the gardens of yore.
How have these beaming beetles been reduced to fading footnotes in the city’s natural history?
{{/usCountry}}How have these beaming beetles been reduced to fading footnotes in the city’s natural history?
{{/usCountry}}Fireflies have literally gone with the city lights! The millions of wattage of artificial power that light up the city skyline and the penchant of wealthy, insecure bungalow owners to switch on innumerable bulbs in their compounds have killed fireflies. Artificial light is blinding and renders firefly flashes less evident. This leads to breeding failure and disorientation as male fireflies use flashes to signal and attract females during the mating season. When gardens and cities were much darker at night, the tiny flashes were clear. An allied factor that has worked against fireflies and insects in general is the phasing out of native flora in gardens and the dousing of exotic plants with pesticides. The female firefly stays on the ground and mainly feeds on snails while males fly and flash. Pesticides kill snails, which means less food for fireflies.
{{/usCountry}}Fireflies have literally gone with the city lights! The millions of wattage of artificial power that light up the city skyline and the penchant of wealthy, insecure bungalow owners to switch on innumerable bulbs in their compounds have killed fireflies. Artificial light is blinding and renders firefly flashes less evident. This leads to breeding failure and disorientation as male fireflies use flashes to signal and attract females during the mating season. When gardens and cities were much darker at night, the tiny flashes were clear. An allied factor that has worked against fireflies and insects in general is the phasing out of native flora in gardens and the dousing of exotic plants with pesticides. The female firefly stays on the ground and mainly feeds on snails while males fly and flash. Pesticides kill snails, which means less food for fireflies.
{{/usCountry}}In the magical childhood of decades ago when children were not tempted by indoor pursuits, the outdoors was the haven for expending boundless energies. Mummy’s drying jam jars would be filched and innocently filled at night with the sparkle of captured fireflies. How one wishes for a time machine to take one back to the halcyon days and to be given just one more shot at reliving those nights of flashmobs. There is no choice but to resign to time’s inexorable passage and to the glare of city lights. However, a real opportunity to gaze at a night of enchanting lights is near at hand. The water bodies of the Shivalik jungles behind the tricity, wherever the wild flora affords a conducive habitat, are an accessible arena for pristine firefly gazing.
Why derive happiness from imprisoning fireflies in jars and dooming them like convicts on death row? The spectacle of a magical jungle jar opening and freeing fireflies into the night is bliss itself. It is nature’s dance of light celebrating daylight’s departure. I recently undertook a nocturnal jungle ramble into the dry, seasonal rivulet draining into Jainti Mata dam. Here, the night’s door was ajar and I peeped in to see fireflies in numbers as infinite as the stars.
In the inner eye, the Jainti jungles recalled scenes from an aquarium. Fireflies flitted and darted among the bushes like dainty goldfish, their flash-and-pause act evocative of the flap-and-rest of fins. In the far distance, firefly flashes duped the human eye as they could easily be mistaken for the startled eyes of a doe caught in a flashlight’s beam. As I stood gazing at fireflies, joyous as a child at the magic show, the images transcended into verses in my mind. I later titled them: Fireflies blink, the night winks.
O what a bliss it is
That what I miss
Is here for my eye to kiss
In numbers so ticklish
That counts are forever amiss
Fireflies twinkle so bright
Daring the dark night
In flights so low
Of cigarette butts aglow
Mesmerising as the festival of jungle lights was, I was mindful of not trodding upon pythons, cobras and vipers or crossing the path of an irascible old wild boar or annoying a roving leopard. Though experience has taught me that the most hazardous of all are blood-thirsty packs of baying village hounds, which regularly hunt fawns in the jungle.
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