Thursday, May 2, 2013

Ten Thousand Lightning Bugs

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.
~Samuel Clemens



A Firefly by Yoshifumi Harada

Today for Art Thursday: the humble lightning bug, also known as the firefly.

Know what else you could call a lightning bug? Here's a partial list from Firefly.org: Glow Fly, Moon Bug, Golden Sparkler, Hotaru, Blinkie, Minna-Minni, Luciérnaga, Kelip-Kelip, Leuchtkäfer, Luciole, Vuurvliegie, Tulikärpänen, and Alitaptap.

Untitled
by Christine Brennan

Fireflies and Moonlight, Great Smoky Mountain National Park, Tennessee
Photo by Frank Kehren
The green light trails are created by regular fireflies during this two minute exposure. The yellow dots on the left are created by a synchronous firefly - they blink five times and then pause. During two weeks in June, large clusters of these fireflies will synchronize and blink and pause at the same time.

Dark Purple, Yellow Bug
by Tanja Z

Flower and Lightning Bug
photo by Fotozaic

Lightning Bug
by Tracey St. Peter

Summer Night Heat
by Quit007

Firefly Moon by Deborah Olliff
The Collection by Cricket Press

The title of the post is from Fireflies:

'Cause I'd get a thousand hugs
From ten thousand lightning bugs
As they tried to teach me how to dance
~Owl City


5 comments:

Linda B said...

My mother and I sat out each evening on her back porch and waited to see the lightning bugs come up out of the grass-magical! We don't have them in Colorado & I think all the kids her miss so much without them. I love your post, Tabatha. I just reviewed a book last week, World Rat Day by J. Patrick Lewis, & one of the 'days' was about fireflies. He called them "electrified confetti".

Linda B said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Retta said...

What a delightful post! I really enjoyed the time lapse photos, too. Thank you. :-)

Poo said...

Nothing says summer like "Blinkies" (I love that name).

I have fond memories of catching them and putting them in a jar (with holes in the top, of course) and watching them play. Then I'd let them loose and they'd stay close for just a little while, like they were saying goodbye.

Love the works you selected Tab, especially Tanja Z's piece and the time lapse photography.

Thanks!

Deb Trotter said...

Tabatha,
I'm so excited to have discovered your blog.

All the firefly art & photos ... simply fantastic!

Would you be at all interested in writing a guest post on my blog about lightning bugs?

My blog, Raised On Love, is a mixture of childhood memories, art, photos, and random posts about my life.
One of the "themes" is lightning bugs. They represent so many different things to me and are always a large part of my summer memories. I grew up in the Blue Ridge Moutains, and lightning bugs were much more plentiful then. I miss them.

Please let me know if you'd be interesting in sharing something about lightning bugs.

my blog: http://www.raisedonlove.com

Thanks!

Deb Trotter