In the past couple weeks one tiny green light has flitted around my yard in the dark hours. The cheery twinkle never fails to make me smile and brings back memories of laying in a field and watching their aerial ballet overhead.

Last night I spent a few minutes trying to photograph my glowing friend. A relatively dull looking individual at first glance…

…but, man, is he spectacular when he lets his little light shine!

Note: I did not try to identify the specific species from my less than stellar photograph as there are 36 firefly or lightning bug species in Texas. Technically, it would be more appropriate to refer to these creatures as lightning beetles (since they aren’t true bugs nor flies).

“Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can’t sustain the part.”
―Robert Frost