Signals of Love ᐉ

On this summer night of Maine, I was mesmerized by the fireflies in a blueberry field. Appear here in timelpase videos, fireflies are incredible insects found on every continent except Antarctica. They communicate in a delicate language of light. They signal mainly for mating, but also to warn the others of predators and to defend their territory. For all of these they need natural darkness and we have changed that in many places by our artificial lights, and the new intensely bright white-blue LEDs has made it worse. Evidence shows light pollution contributes to the decline of firefly population across the globe (and many other nocturnal insects). Studies found an almost 50% decrease in firefly flashes per minute in the presence of artificial light and that means less mating and less population. People who live away from the city lights can help fireflies talk to each other by using fewer exterior lights and turning lights off when they aren’t needed. I look forward to return to this dark sky protected place in late August for the annual Maine Stargazing & Photography Retreat https://babaktafreshi.com/maine Learn more about dark sky values and how to control light pollution on https://darksky.org