Fireflies, Deer, and Bears: Oh My! Wildlife in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
There's something oh-so-satisfying about adding a new National Park pin to our pin board, and we just had to choose a black bear pin to represent Great Smoky Mountain National Park. After all, they are the ambassadors of the Smokies. But did we actually spot any in the wild? Read on to find out!
Great Smoky Mountains National Park was on our must-visit list for years. We had hoped to take a road trip down to the area during fall foliage season a few years ago, but financially it wasn't feasible at the time. Fast forward to now, and we were able to spend three weeks enjoying the park and surrounding towns. While we didn't get to see the foliage, we were here for something better. We're New Englanders. Foliage we've got. What we don't have are synchronous fireflies.
In the 2020 lockdown, we were trying to preserve our sanity by participating in virtual events. I came across the Synchronous Firefly Festival of the Smokies, which is usually held in-person but this time was turned into a video production. We sat down in our living room and learned about the different species of fireflies in the Smokies. There are 19, all mesmerizing in their own way, but the synchronous fireflies light up - you guessed it - in sync with one another. So, during their mating season in late May to mid-June, they put on quite the spectacular lighting display. Sitting in our living room, Anthony and I watched in awe at the beauty of these little insects, so remarkably captured by firefly photographer Radim Schreiber. Not much was inspiring me during the pandemic, but after watching the virtual festival, I reached out to Radim and asked if we could collaborate on putting some harp music to his firefly footage. I wanted to give voices to the fireflies. We ended up creating a firefly and harp music video, and I also released The Fireflies Trilogy, music inspired by the patterns of 3 firefly species in North America: The Synchronous firefly, the J Stroke (aka Big Dipper) firefly, and the Blue Ghost firefly.
Safe to say, I got very attached to these tiny creatures, and so when we made the decision to RV to the Smokies for my birthday, I could think of no better present than to view the synchronous display. Great Smoky Mountains National Park holds a lottery for their festival, but the chances of getting in are slim to none. We applied anyway, but also booked ourselves a firefly viewing tour through Smoky Mountain Guides. We did not win the lottery, and so the tour was our only chance to see the display...or so we thought.
Imagine our delight on our first night at our Smokies campground, when we went outside and were greeted by the most beautiful display of bioluminescence. For some reason (which we later theorized to be the sheer heat of the valley we were staying in), the fireflies flocked to the area right next to our campsite. Night after night, we were surrounded by the flickers of light, decorating the trees and mimicking the twinkling of the stars above. I got emotional, realizing how much we had come full circle. In 2020, stuck inside and feeling depressed, we decided to make a change. That change led us to the RV life, which led us to the Smokies. Seeing the fireflies helped me realize how far we've come since the days of so much unknown.
By the time our Smoky Mountain firefly tour rolled around, we were feeling a bit spoiled, but we were curious to see if the firefly display in the deep, dark woods was better than at our campground. We met our group shortly before sunset and were ushered into a secret spot in the park, where we set up camping chairs and waited for the fireflies to emerge. We were told to not use any light if we could help it, and to only use red lights as needed, as red lights are a little less distracting to the fireflies. Though the weather took a turn (as it does in the Smokies), we were able to see some synchronous fireflies, but not to the extent the guides hoped for us. We did, however, see some blue ghosts, despite their mating season being almost over. Fireflies are impossible to capture unless you have Radim Schreiber-level talent, but here you can see the streak made by the blue ghost. They light up dimmer than synchronous fireflies, for longer periods of time (multiple seconds), and their lights have a blue tinge to them, that turns up green on camera. Blue ghost is my favorite song on my Fireflies Trilogy, so I was really happy to be able to see a few of this species in the wild.
Though the synchronous firefly display was only about a quarter of what we experienced at the campground, we enjoyed our knowledgeable and personable tour guides. There's also something about being in the forest at night that's really peaceful. We don't get pitch blackness at the campground, and so our fireflies viewing was always a little less vibrant. Sitting among our fellow firefly seekers as the cold front swept in really made us feel like we were one with nature.
After several days and multiple attempts to capture the fireflies on video, I made a small compilation. The videos aren't great, but it's the best I could do. Like so many spectacles in nature, they were simply best seen with the naked eye.
Fireflies aren't the only creatures that have visitors flocking to the Smokies in springtime. Black bears emerge from their dens around April and are common in the national park, with a density of approximately 1.5 bears per square mile, but we honestly didn't know how easy they would be to spot. We had high hopes of seeing at least one, and the Smokies sure delivered.
If you've read the previous two blog posts (which I highly encourage you to do!), you know that we already had a couple bear sightings, one from a chairlift in Gatlinburg, and a bear family from a huge distance on our Pink Jeep Tour, thanks to the eagle-eyed hunting fanatic who happened to be the dad in the other family we toured with. How he caught a glimpse of those bears from so far away will continue to stun me forever. But yes, our bear wildlife sightings were technically complete. But who doesn't want to keep seeing more bears?! From a safe distance, of course.
My best bear footage, which still isn't good, came from the side of the road. We were driving the outskirts of the park and came across our first "bear jam," aka traffic jam created by people stopping in the middle of the road to catch a glimpse of a bear. We're respectful people who follow the rules and therefore don't stop in the middle of the road, but I was able to grab this short video as we drove slowly by:
That was it for bear photos and videos, unless you want to count this one, taken at the wildlife sanctuary at Ober Gatlinburg:
I jokingly call this the "representative photo" because I didn't get any clear photos of the bears in the wild.
We had more bear sightings while driving the Cades Cove Loop. This is a popular drive for spotting wildlife in general, but it's also really beautiful and has tons of history. We'll discuss Cades Cove in more detail in the next blog post, but it's important to note that, if you're hoping to spot wildlife, get there in the morning or evening. This also helps to avoid crowds. We went in the evening and saw two bears. We also saw quite a few deer, a rabbit, a turkey, and lots of butterflies (not all are pictured because wildlife photography is hard and turkeys aren't exciting to us).
On other drives, we saw a couple of beavers, but were unable to take photos of them without risk of running them over. All that to say, the Smokies were full of really cool wildlife sightings, but wildlife is only one of the things that makes this park incredible.