Blue Ghost Fireflies at the Cradle of Forestry in America
For mere weeks every year, twilight in Pisgah comes alive with Blue Ghost Fireflies. In search of a mate, these male fireflies hover two to five feet above the ground and glow a soft, entrancing blue. “It almost looks very eerie,” said Clinton Wickers, Manager of the Cradle of Forestry in America with Find Outdoors, “like an actual ghost in the woods.”
This visual experience is impossible to replicate digitally: when photographed, Blue Ghosts appear green—still beautiful, but a far cry from the almost otherworldly experience of seeing their blue glow with your own eyes. While Blue Ghosts have been seen everywhere from Texas to Oklahoma to Kentucky, they typically live in the southern Appalachians and thrive in the North Carolina mountains. They are most likely to be seen on humid evenings in May and June, appearing most brightly on nights with a new or crescent moon.
From their home base in the Pisgah National Forest, the Cradle of Forestry offers annual tours where visitors walk along paved trails to various firefly hotspots—including a pond that mirrors the light of the Blue Ghost. Visitors may see other astounding wildlife on the trail, from bioluminescent species in a creekbed to the area’s synchronous fireflies overlapping with Blue Ghosts around the first week of June.
Forestry education in the country first began at the Cradle, and they see the Blue Ghost tours as a continuation of the Cradle’s legacy of environmental learning. “The Blue Ghost Firefly Tours help support the Cradle of Forestry in America by practicing its mission and teaching the public about forest conservation and management, and that includes wildlife,” Clinton said.
For this video, Clinton and Cradle Caretaker Bob Beanblossom guided us through the length of the trail—telling us an in-depth and fascinating history of the Cradle and the land itself. Blue Ghost tours run on select dates from May 19 to June 7, with highly anticipated tickets expected to go on sale in early April at gofindoutdoors.org.
