LADY FIREFLIES

re you glow-worm hunters?” a grinning bearded man asks us.

We hesitate for a moment and then my daughter Martha and I nod as he ushers us into a large courtyard garden. There’s quite a gathering: ladies chatting loudly, excited children chasing each other about and, I notice, a lot of men with beards (myself included). With crickets singing and wine flowing, there’s a distinctly Mediterranean vibe in the summer evening air.

We could be in Italy, but instead we’re in Westbury-sub-Mendip, a small Somerset village between Cheddar and Wells, and we’re here for a night of pure magic. Each year, on the last Thursday in July, the citizens of Westbury get together to count the village’s population of glow-worms. These surveys are organised by retired local biology teacher (and appropriately named) Peter Bright. He welcomes us warmly, organises everyone into small search parties and offers us some tips.

“You’ll find more glow-worms on southfacing hedges,” Peter explains. “Look below knee height and, don’t forget, the glow- worms won’t become visible until 9:55pm.”

This all sounds rather precise, but we follow our team-mates, Nick and Dickon, up Perch Hill and along a narrow lane to our allocated patch. A late-night sortie of swifts is screaming somewhere high above us and a milky peel of moon barely lights our way.

“Perfect for glow-worm hunting,” Nick whispers. “An overcast night makes it much easier to see them.”

The church clock of St Lawrence’s chimes 10 times and, right on cue, we spot it: low down in a scrubby verge, glow-worm number one. What strikes me most is how incredibly bright it is. A brilliant, lime-green light shines with the same unwavering intensity of any LED indicator found on a hundred electrical appliances around the home. Although I’ve seen this little beacon before, it’s a dim and distant memory. But it’s my daughter’s first encounter. Crouching down, we briefly shine our torch to study it more closely. A grub-like, woodlousy creature – nearly an inch (25mm) long – is revealed, clinging tightly to a long blade of grass, the tip of its tail twisted upwards and ablaze with two narrow stripes and two tiny spots of neon. It’s obvious how the glowworm got its name, but Martha remembers a line from Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach: “She isn’t a worm at all. [Glow-worms] are simply lady fireflies without wings.”