Are These Pesky Bugs Already Showing Up This Year in Colorado?

Late March is a weird time in Colorado. One day it is sunny and warm, the next could be a blizzard. Take this weekend for example. Great weather on Saturday and for a portion of Sunday... Right before a snowstorm hit.

If this type of weather confuses you, imagine what it does to tiny insects. They don't have apps to forecast the weather like we do. I am sure they are more than surprised when a snowstorm comes through which very well could end the short life of the bug.

On Saturday, we took our dog for a walk around Windsor Lake. We were barely into our walk when we were literally swarmed with a swarm of flying bugs. This felt odd and certainly out of season. There were so many flying bugs in the handful of swarms we walked into, that I got a few in my mouth and our dog was chomping at them to get the bugs out of her face.

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When do mosquitos come out in Colorado?

I swear that all these bugs at Windsor Lake were mosquitoes. So convinced, I had to look up when the active months for mosquitoes are in Colorado. According to Mosquito Joe, mosquito season can start as early as April in Colorado. That means late March wouldn't be too crazy of a time to see mosquitoes in Northern Colorado.

Like most people, I despise mosquitoes mainly because those little blood suckers love me. Every summer, I end up with dozens, if not hundreds of bites. So the more time I have outdoors mosquito-free the better.

Mosquitoes in March in Colorado

Thankfully, our walk through the flying bug swarms did not result in any bug bites. If these bugs were not mosquitoes, what were they? Come to find out, there is a bug that closely resembles a mosquito, but isn't a mosquito. These bugs are known as a midge and fly in swarms.

Searching through Google, there doesn't seem to be a lot of information on this flying insect other than fish love them. So much, that there are plenty of websites that you can buy midge fishing flies to catch that trophy Colorado trout. From the information I gathered on the midge, there seem to be two types. One that does not bite and more of a nuisance and the other that does bite. The ones that bite have a nickname of No-see-ums because they are so small, that they are hard to see.

Chances are that the flying bugs we encountered on our walk around Windsor Lake were non-biting midges. While they were a bit of an inconvenience to walk through, at least they were not swarms of mosquitoes.