To submit your own report email burger@burger.com
Please include your city/town and state, and the date of your sighting. Include as many details as you can, such as numbers of fireflies, location (rural/city/wooded area, etc), temperature, time, and so on. Thanks for helping with this project.
Below are reports from Japan, listed in date order, alphabetically by city.
Japan:
September 29, 2000: A reader recalls: 73 years ago, when I was five, I visited Japan with my parents. There were
many fireflies out in the country, along a small creek. We swung a broom
through them to catch them and put them in a small screened cage. There were
enough to light our way in the dark. I remember thinking that they were hot
in my palm.
Then in 1976 my sister and I visited Japan. I didn't see even one!
Saw just a few in Amazon forest in the early 1980's.
Kamakura:
June 16, 1999: A reader notes: I am originally from Texas and we use to catch fireflies in the country but never in the lighted cities. They seem to like being near water so you find them at the river's edge, especially where there are groves of trees. I remember catching them when we were staying at a cabin at the river in New Braunsfels, Texas, in late July. We just went to view hundreds of fireflies near Kamakura, Japan. There is a park on top of a mountain with paved walkways and people all walk through it in the dark and stop to admire the fireflies flashing among the pines against the mountain. It is really something to see. They are like little fairies some moving slowly and some zooming across but very much like living moving Christmas lights. We seem to have a larger variety over here too. Another thing I notice is that the Japanese do not catch the fireflies and put them in jars. They tend to leave them to fly around and don't chase them. Their children are encouraged to catch one and everyone watches it flash as it crawls around and then they let it go. I have never walked around in the dark with a bunch of strangers before and that in itself was an experience but then Japan is one of the safest countries in the world.