While vacationing at Silver Lake, Washington last week I noticed these large midges doing something very strange. At sunset each evening (around 9:30 PM) the male midges would gather on the deck of our motel room above the water. Within a few minutes they would begin emitting a drop of dark brown liquid from the end of their abdomen. There was a thin, pointed, transparent tube that the droplet attached to. When the droplet was large enough the midge would dip his abdomen into it inserting a corkscrew-shaped tube. My guess is that the midges were preparing to mate. Within 30 minutes they were gone, presumably in search of females. Can anyone tell me what was going on here? Thanks!

To those of you folks who are going to the Bugguide Gathering this month, I hope you have better luck than I did finding insects in Washington. My husband and I visited several state parks, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Saint Helens, the Columbia River Gorge, and the Long Beach Peninsula during our visit. I was surprised at the small number of insects and spiders we saw in those areas. Even the mosquitoes weren't too numerous! We did see a few interesting beetles. One rainy day I saw thousands of little red springtails on tree bark just outside of Mt. Rainier, the next day they were mostly gone. I'll be anxious to see what you find up there! Good luck!