Amy’s Environmental Almanac
Naturalist Tips for May 2026Tick Season in High Swing in May
The tiny blood sucking menaces are revolting. Ticks arrive via deer, mice, rodents and even your own friendly pet dog. They hop on us from the tips of long grasses on a trail at Riverbend, they hang from edges of brushy areas in our yard, and snuggle into old leaf piles at the edge of woods. Sitting on our own patio, we find them crawling up our skin.
But fear not! Though there is not a singular miracle cure, with some layered steps of vigilance and the right repellent spray, we can stop them cold as summer arrives.
TICK PREVENTION Do’s and Don’ts
ALWAYS start early in the year to encourage helpful wildlife that eat thousands of ticks. Salamanders, toads, frogs, and even lightning bugs are voracious feeders of small ticks. Create small unobtrusive habitats for these helpful, quiet and hungry neighbors, ideally at the edge of woods or yard perimeter.
INVITE into your yard tick eating wild birds, like blue jays, cardinals, bluebirds, wrens, ducks (and so many more.) Whenever possible, invite domesticated chickens and guinea hens over to roam your yard, devouring ticks. Though none of these are expected to eliminate an entire tick population, they can contribute to reducing the population to a manageable level.
DO CREATE tick free zones in your yard:
- Move woodpiles out of heavy trafficked areas
- Remove dry leaves at edge of woods
- Keep grass cut short in high use areas; ticks love long grass with shade and moisture, and they hate heat and dry. Consumer Reports suggests that keeping grass between 3-4.5 inches is best for tick prevention.
- Consider a gravel, dry mulch, or low physical barrier at woods edge that would heat up and dry out ticks as they leave the woods and before they reach the heavy trafficked play areas of your yard
- If you have a known tick problem, consider bagging your grass clippings and composting them in a far corner of your yard, rather than leaving them in place. Redistribute the compost to feed plants once it has heated up and broken down into compost.
DO CREATE tickfree zones on YOU!
If you will be in a known high tick area, on a hike, or working in the yard or woods use these precautions:
Use light colored clothing (to better see ticks), use long sleeves, and tuck long pants into socks, and use closed shoes. Use tick repellent containing 20-30% DEET on exposed skin, and use .5% permethrin on socks, clothing and shoes. Make sure to do a tick check within a few hours of your hike and take a shower. Removing ticks within 24 hours is often effective for preventing transfer of illness since lots of ticks don’t bite right away, or if they have bitten, they don’t transfer enough bad stuff in the first 24 hours to create disease. Tick checks matter.
DO PROTECT AMPHIBIAN HELPERS: Remember, with every step, be mindful of minimizing harm to amphibians, your best asset in keeping tick populations low. (They eat mosquitos, too!)
To protect amphibians, avoid these steps:
DON’T be tempted to use broadcast insecticides, even the so called “natural” or “organic” products, since even small amounts in runoff water are absorbed into delicate eggs and right through the permeable skin of amphibians who are our first line of defense against ticks. Though cedar oil, cinnamon oil and botanical oils generally do not appear to harm humans, studies have shown that they do not reduce ticks or mosquitos, but they certainly do create toxic situations for amphibians, in your yard and downstream.
The future? Some pathogenic fungi show promise as useful biological control for ticks. The fungi are used to weaken the covering skin of a nymph and adult tick, which kills them. These products are already available in granular and spray forms but more safety studies are underway to ensure safety for the rest of the insect and amphibian food chain.
For more frog friendly tips, (see DWR blog: https://dwr.virginia.gov/blog/frog-friday-help-protect-your-local-frogs-by-reducing-your-use-of-pesticides-and-fertilizers/)
For more info on protecting children from ticks, take it from the experts in Connecticut.
To find the right tick repellent for your family, the EPA search tool might come in handy:
https://www.epa.gov/insect-repellents/find-repellent-right-you
Or
The Appalachian Mountain Club guide to tick products:
Or
NYTimes Wirecutter product review: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/prevent-ticks-lyme-disease/
Naturalist Tips for April 2026
It’s April… and time to say…. Welcome Fireflies!
Though you might not have noticed yet, lovable fireflies are already in their young flightless forms in your yard eating unwanted garden pests while actively developing into the lightning bugs that charm your garden each summer. Their voracious appetite for young snails and slugs happening right now means they are not just a sparkly indulgence, but have a welcome function in your balanced backyard ecology. To thrive, fireflies need leaf litter, undisturbed moist areas, clean conditions (no insecticides) and zero light at night. It can take a year, (or even two) for them to emerge as the bug we love.
Actually it is easy to do: simply protect their “nurseries” and habitat in your yard, especially in the spring, so you can enjoy their fabulous display starting in late May, and in years to come.
A bit about their life cycle in your yard: Fireflies’ tiny, delicate eggs were laid in mid summer last year, where they sat quietly in moist dead leaves interspersed among old branches and plant debris shelter for a few weeks. The tiny eggs glow a little bit sitting there, earning high marks on the backyard cool factor. Interesting looking, ground walking, pre-adult forms hatch from summer eggs. They look like little flat, armored caterpillars, who glow gently at night as they wander among old leaf debris, feeding voraciously on garden pests like slugs and snails. In winter they burrow and hibernate underground, and in spring (actually right now) they surface and again feed on the youngest of emerging snails and slugs, tamping down those undesirable populations. After a few helpful weeks of pest control, they burrow into soil or under bark to pupate. If you look carefully in end of May, you can find these pupae, the size of a small pea, quietly glowing, just under the surface of the ground or under bark or mulch in moist areas. After a few weeks of metamorphizing change, the fireflies emerge as adult fireflies… the flying, flashing, delightful lightning bugs we love.
So to encourage them, start in the spring with simple steps:
1. Protect their nursery habitat: Don’t blow away old leaves… leave them in place for a few more weeks, since they are active “firefly nurseries” until the end of May. Leave the debris in place until about a week after you see fireflies at night.
If “leaving the leaves” is not an option (I get it), then consider designating several undisturbed areas as firefly habitat that are off limits to blowers or garden tasks all year.
2. Do not apply insecticides or weedkillers of any kind to your yard or habitat areas, and ask neighbors to join in. The Xerces Society explains that “…Fireflies are highly sensitive to insecticides, which are major drivers of their population decline. Pesticides kill them directly, reduce their food sources (snails, worms), and disrupt their development, particularly because larvae live in soil for up to two years, absorbing toxins.”
Most insecticides, even the “organic” ones, kill far more than one tiny species, and can reach far into the food web in complex ways. Encouraging more fireflies, and other natural pest predators, is a healthier (cheaper!) alternative.
3. Turn off outdoor artificial lights! Fireflies reproduction is severely affected by artificial light at night. Firefly.org explains: “Artificial light at night (ALAN) interferes with their bioluminescent mating signals, making it difficult for males to locate females, disrupting courtship, and reducing reproductive success.”
When you turn off outdoor lights, you are able to see the soft glow of the magical larval and pupa stages under leaves as well as better see and enjoy the flashy adult spectacle. In normal nighttime darkness, fireflies’ natural regulation system and reproduction work better and they will grow healthier. Since they have a two-year life cycle, eliminating outdoor lights at night now and this summer will help next year’s population growth.
As a note, outdoor LED lights are the most disruptive, since LEDs flash light rapidly much faster than humans see. That effect confuses fireflies (and bats and moths…) ultimately reducing populations of these desirable species. So if you want fireflies again next year… turn off outdoor lights completely at night after bedtime and whenever possible.
4. Talk to your neighbors about cooperating to create a firefly sanctuary so that the whole neighborhood enjoys the summer spectacle and its beneficial three season pest control. Firefly.org even offers advise on how to set up a firefly protection area and how to get involved. https://www.firefly.org/certify
Naturalist Tips for March 2026
TIP: To reduce backyard bug pests this summer… mosquitos, ticks, flies and slugs… encourage salamander habitat in your yard now. These quiet, shy neighbors devour the pests you deplore. For the next few weeks (March and April), leave moist areas like puddles, small leaf piles, fallen branches and old tree trunks undisturbed so salamanders have a safe place to lay delicate eggs and provide your yard with round the clock mosquito and tick control this summer! Bonus: the same actions… not disturbing woodland edge leaves and branches… creates and protects habitat for fireflies this summer. Protect now, enjoy later.
Sick of summer mosquitos and ticks ruining your outdoor fun? Very effective (and genuinely) natural pest control is right under your feet, and it is completely free.
Though you may never see your quiet, shy, unassuming neighbors, salamanders eat copious amounts of unwanted pests like mosquitos, ticks, spiders, flies and slugs all day long, all spring, summer and fall. Their voracious appetites for pests protect you and your family all summer long. And, having a heathy salamander population removes the need for costly broadcast chemical pesticides, including the often misrepresented “organic” or “natural” pesticides commonly sprayed on lawns. You may never see the salamanders, but their appetites help you enjoy your backyard life.
Simple steps, starting in February:
- Leave the leaves… for now. Don’t blow leaves or remove that pile of damp organic material under your trees or round your patio areas until about the end of April. Salamanders start laying eggs as early as February on warm early spring days, and they do it in those moist leaf piles and ephemeral wetlands (that wet spot in your yard that persists for weeks), so “cleaning up” during this vulnerable time removes their habitat, and well, kills them. So, for a few weeks, just let it be.
- Move dead fallen limbs and bark to a safe spot in February and leave them alone until the end of April to provide a few more safe hiding spots for very shy salamanders and their delicate eggs.
- Salamander eggs look like tiny crystal balls around a pepper corn. If you find these pretty eggs, gently cover them back up with some damp leaves and leave them alone.
- Salamanders are “indicator species” and like other pest eating amphibians such as frogs and toads, they are very sensitive to common chemical treatments -- even if the treatments are confusingly labeled “organic” or “natural” -- so minimizing broadcast pesticide treatments will help mosquito eaters thrive and will help keep your friends, neighbors and family more comfortable outside.
- In your landscaping plan, create a few moist, fern filled and/or shade plant zones throughout your yard with plenty of leaf and organic material to protect your quiet, desirable salamander neighbors.
And wonderfully…those same actions now also protect and preserve your firefly population this summer. So, relaxing now, and just letting it be, will let you enjoy the real magic of summer outdoors in Great Falls this year.
Amy Stephan is a GFCA Exec Board Member and a Virginia Master Naturalist in Old Rag VMN District.