12 Months in the Metroparks: July

7/1/2026

By Erin Parker, Interpretive Services Supervisor

July in the Metroparks isn’t just swimming, picnics, and fireworks (though those are all great reasons to visit!). July is also peak wildflower season for our prairie plantings and grow zones, a great time to watch newly fledged birds flap their wings, and enjoy the twilight show as fireflies emerge and bats swoop to catch insects on the wing!

Prairies and pollinators

July brings a bounty of blooms across your Metroparks, and along with those flowers come a variety of butterflies, moths, bees, wasps, beetles, and other pollinators.

July’s profusion of blooms, like these wild bergamot (Monarda) blooming at Willow Metropark, supports a wide variety of pollinators, too. Take a moment to watch all the insects coming and going from the flowers on your next visit to your Metroparks!

Indigenous plants to our region to look for in July include:

Common milkweed (purple flowers with a strong floral scent)

Butterfly milkweed (vivid orange flowers on a more compact plant)

Echinaceas (several species in shades of purple with spiky centers)

Rudbeckias (many species in shades of yellow with softer, brown-to-black centers)

Monardas (shades of purple and red with a spicy scent)

Mints (white and pink-to-purple flowers)

The profusion of blooming that happens in July will extend into September and even October but will shift from milkweeds and coneflowers to goldenrods and asters as the seasons change. July hosts many species of moth and butterfly that require not only the flowers for nectaring but also the host plants that each species’ caterpillar needs to grow.

Twilight displays

While the light lingers late in the summer, twilight is a great time to enjoy the outdoors. The intensity of July’s sun breaks, and a new suite of organisms come out to catch dinner and take on the night shift in our parks and backyards.

Michigan is home to at least 24 species of fireflies, all with their own unique seasonal peaks, flashing patterns, habits, and habitat patterns. The one thing that they all have in common is that their larval stage is in the soil or leaf litter at the soil’s surface. Lightning bugs spend up to two years (which is most of their life) in this stage, so leaving fall leaves on the ground is a critical piece of having summer fireflies!

Observed during the day, fireflies blend in with other beetles. But come evening, their unique features are visible in flashing patterns of light that are used to attract mates.

The flashing patterns of fireflies that enchant human observers on warm summer evenings are essentially a courtship ritual or conversation between the males and females. The males are often found higher in the trees or flying around, while the females of most species remain low on the ground or in the vegetation. Because they are a diverse group, lightning bugs can be found in a variety of habitats as long as their early life stages were protected by healthy soil, leaf cover, and limited use of pesticides.

Along with the sparkling show of fireflies, Michigan’s nine species of bats start to get active as the sun sets. Watch bats swoop and flutter over water, fields, and along forest openings. All of Michigan’s bats are insectivorous, or insect-eating, and consume everything from moths to mosquitoes. Yes, they’re probably eating some of the fireflies, too!

Summer evenings are a good time to see bats catching insects while swooping through open fields, trails, and near street lights that attract insects. Bats like this little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) have been hit particularly hard by a fungal disease that spreads in their preferred cool, damp winter roosting areas.

Many bat populations have been hit hard in the Great Lakes region by a fungal disease called white-nose syndrome that has caused numbers to decline. Unlike rodents, such as mice, bats are long-lived and only give birth to 1-3 pups a year. When a disease like white-nose syndrome knocks back their numbers, recovery can be a huge challenge. Scientists are still exploring ways to kill the fungal spores that cause white-nose and examining bats that survived, as maybe they have adaptations that will help their offspring thrive despite the deadly fungus.

Bats, much like lightning bugs, are dependent on spaces that reduce or eliminate pesticide use, as their diet is entirely made up of insects. Insects that are exposed to pesticides cause bioaccumulation in insect-eating bats (and other animals). This means that as the bat consumes 500-1,000 insects each night, it is also accumulating all of the pesticides that its insect prey had been exposed to during its lifespan.

Get out and explore:

Adult Nature Hike: Stream Wading– 7.4.2026: Stony Creek Metropark Nature Center – $5 (Ages 18+)

Rainbow Hunt Hike– 7.5.2026: Lake Erie Metropark Marshlands Museum- $3/5 (Ages 5+)

Summer Wildflower Walk: Leave No Trace 7.11.2026: Indian Springs Metropark Environmental Discovery Center – Free (All ages)

The Art of Nature– 7.11.2026: Oakwoods Metropark Nature Center- $10 (Ages 14+ )

Fireflies of July– 7.18.2026: Kensington Metropark Nature Center- $5 (Ages 9+)

Flower Pressing– 7.25.2026: Stony Creek Metropark Nature Center- $5 (Ages 14+)

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