A short drive from the New Canaan Nature Center, another corner of town comes alive on midsummer nights — glowing with thousands of fireflies. Tucked into 6.5 acres of meadow and forest, the New Canaan Land Trust Firefly Sanctuary located at the Colbert Sanctuary property, off Sleepy Hollow Road offers a rare glimpse of an increasingly endangered summer spectacle.
“It’s dark, which is what fireflies love,” says Chris Schipper, the former president of the New Canaan Land Trust and a guide for the evening walks. The sanctuary’s protected setting — undeveloped land bordered by woodland — provides precisely what fireflies need to thrive: darkness and habitat.
“The biggest challenge for fireflies is habitat,” Schipper explains. “There are fewer and fewer places near big cities that are like this, completely undeveloped.”
The sanctuary reveals an intricate mating dance each summer night. Female fireflies hover near the ground, flashing their lights, while males climb tree trunks to signal back. “They are going up to try to locate, or signal, to a female down below,” Schipper says. “And when they coordinate their signals, he will try to fly down to meet the female.”
This fragile cycle underscores the threats posed by modern landscaping practices. “All the things that people put down to get a great lawn, also suppress almost everything else,” Schipper notes. Pesticides, herbicides, and even landscape lighting can disrupt reproduction, shrinking firefly populations over time. And yes – leaf blowers are also harmful.
For Schipper, the sanctuary represents more than conservation — it’s a legacy project. “It’s about making a gift to the future,” he says, “hopefully this will be thriving in another 100, or 500, or 1,000 years. That’s the hope.”
