Beatriz Swanson can remember the first time she saw the blinking glow. She was 10 years old, growing up in Mexico, when two fireflies appeared in front of her, floating away before she could carefully capture them in her hands.
Swanson did not see the shining insects again until she moved to upstate New York 17 years after her first encounter. Riding in a car at dusk, a cloud of fireflies caught her eye, still holding their allure after all those years.
“I couldn’t believe how many we saw,” Swanson said. “I told my husband to stop. I was like a child watching. I was in such awe seeing such beauty. So since then, I’ve loved them.”…