Ebbie, what you saw were probably Choronomids. The look quite similar to mosquitoes when they hatch, but they don't bite. Some years here they even show up in January in large numbers amongst the salal.

My sympathies gnu, we're having a less extreme form of that kind of weather on this coast too. A sunny 26C yesterday and then the wind came up and blew all that lovely weather away. Its cloudy again and a low of 6 is predicted for tonight.

We keep getting tantalized with a few warm sunny days and then it gets chilly again....warm spring weather arrived really late this year. We had salmon berry still blooming last week, when some years its finished blooming in late February and early March.