Lightning bugs and Lightning

Wednesday night was beautiful and incredible for so many reasons. To start off, fireflies (aka lightning bugs). Oh, so many fireflies. And incredibly bright! It looked like some sort of elaborate light show with the tiny bright flashes of light all along the grass and up into the trees. I have never seen fireflies as bright as they are here, most of them also seemed to flash more quickly than I remember, making it all the more magical.
I was not able to get pictures that justify the beauty but I got a few that might give you an idea of just how many there were (Look for the tiny white dots!).

They are there, I promise...

After being dazzled by the lightning bugs, which were living up to their name, and the occasional lightning flash, we went up the mountain for salamander sampling. It was warm and had rained that afternoon, AKA a good night to be a salamander. We saw SO many and a bunch of them were up off the ground! Actually, most of them were. :) See for yourself:

Plethodon juvenile

Some of them looked like they were about to fall off their branches:

Two on the same branch!

Others were perched on leaves:

I can't handle the cuteness in this picture.

At one site there were a bunch of tobacco hornworms (they turn in to large moths) which were bright green! These are closely related to the tomato hornworm, which is a common garden pest.

It was really wonderful to be out when all of the salamanders were out and about. It further excites me to try and figure out exactly when and why they are climbing. Salamanders of many different sizes seemed to be climbing, but I didn't see any of the tiny ones off the ground. Since they would loose water the quickest, this makes sense. Some of them had apparently traveled several feet along branches and tree trunks to get to their perches. I am curious to know how long they stay up there, one of the ones we saw on the trail was gone about an hour later. One of these nights I am going to have to just go out and watch them (with a red light to be less disruptive) to see what they do!