> I love fireflies. But in recent years, they stopped coming for reasons I don’t know. No tiny, glowing dots in the dark like they used to. I miss them more than I expected.

Light pollution, and even more: pesticides.

Population of all insects fall dramatically.

"Three-quarters of flying insects in nature reserves across Germany have vanished in 25 years" - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/18/warning-...

As I understand it, fireflies are vulnerable to lawn chemicals and light pollution. They spend something like 2 years as grubs and then a few weeks as adults above ground. Lawn/in-ground pesticides kill the grubs, and light pollution interferes with finding a mate.

Also people removing fallen leaves. They lay their eggs in leaf litter, if there's no leaf litter there won't be any fireflies looking to mate.

I have memories of the front of the car being caked in bugs from night driving and long daytime trips.

Doesn’t seem to happen anymore…

30 years ago, when I moved to Houston, a 1910s-1920s residential area called the Heights was somewhat famous for its fireflies -- though longtime residents would tell you they were drastically diminished from what they'd been in the 60s or 70s.

By 20 years ago, they were almost entirely gone.