fireflies of donsol

after the meeting the butandings, we had set an appointment with the fireflies of the donsol river later in the night. as we were too early for our ride, we whiled the time away trying to capture donsol’s beautiful sunset.

and when it was almost pitch black, our boat came and we slowly chugged along the calm waters of donsol bay into the donsol river. our boat was ably guided by a simple flashlight. it was an unusually calm night but i got shivers thinking that we were out on this small boat in open sea with no life jacket on. who knows if the butandings would suddenly make a comeback 🙂

in any case, after crossing the bridge that marked entry into the river, we slowly tried to make our eyes get used to seeing natural light. in a matter of minutes, were were approaching a tree of fireflies. it was nature’s version of the christmas lights. and nature can put on quite a show as well 🙂

our guide told us what we needed to know about fireflies including how to determine a firefly’s gender, their short lifespan and other interesting things about the insect. dong even managed to catch a firefly on his hand 😉

we also discovered that planktons are like fireflies as well. the donsol river was rich with plankton so that when the boatmen stirred the water with the oars, they will light up as well.

it was also an opportunity for jay, may and dong to teach me the finer things about using the bulb feature of a dslr, in the dark.

this is the best i can come up with using the nikon d50. with may’s help i might add. just wanted to pinch myself for not exactly getting acquainted with the cam so that i can properly use it to capture how the fireflies danced along the branches of the talisay tree. i am sorry if you are going to strain your eyes with the above photo. hehe then again, there are things best seen with your own eyes as it is the best camera of all 🙂

Better pix of the fireflies here 🙂

the whole experience was enlightening as it was only then that i gave it thought that i was lucky to have played with fireflies in my childhood. i know not all have that privilege.