I was under the impression they were gall midges. Perhaps crane fly is another name for them but I have their larvae falling from my oak trees (gall midge larvae eat the flowers of oak trees, fall the ground and dig under for a year to pupate) but yes, it looks like we're under an invasion of them.

Coincidentally, i remember there being many more spiders around by this time in previous years and there seems to be a real shortage of them. Perhaps the two are related.

Additionally, this morning on the local news I heard that this is the year for the 17 cicada invasion for lower kentucky and middle tennesee this year. We shall see... if they're right we'll all have TONS (*literally*) of free fertilizer all over the ground, pavement, etc. over the next several months.

They are driving me nuts! Being in the yard is one thing but at night they are all over the patio. I've killed well over 1,000 of them. Today I'm spraying the yard and trees for those guys and the thousands of inch worms that are eating my fruit trees.

Mosquito Hawks are your friends! They eat mosquitoes!

Try replacing outdoor lightbulbs with the yellow variety, leaving one bright white bulb *away* from where you enjoy spending time. The critters will gravitate to the white light, where they will chomp up mosquitoes and hopefully leave you (more or less) alone.

hmm, i thought they were may flies. since its almost may lol.

I just looked up mosquito hawk on wikipedia and they said they can only eat flower nectar and they do not actually eat mosquitos at all.

would have been cool if they did though...

Mayflies have those two long wire-looking tails. They aren't Crane flies either I don't think. And I don't care if they eat Japanese Beetles, I had one sting me once several years ago therefore they are on my hit list. Anything that bites or stings me has gotta go. There are thousands in the yard that I can't take out so they can eat all the mosquitoes they want but the ones that come to the house at night are fair game. I'm now up to a body count of 1,177. :-)

They look like good fishin'!

Don't know about that, but the coming locusts are. (Cicadas) But you can't catch anything on them while they are swarming. The fish have plenty of free food then. But you can put bags of them in the freezer and thaw them out after the swarm is over and use them for bait. I hear it works very well.

Ok, here's the scoop on critters called Mosquito Hawks - those that eat mosquitoes and those that don't.

I suspect the ones you're talking about are crane flies.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mosquito Hawks