Birds, Leps, Observations & Generalities - the images and ramblings of Mark Skevington. Sometimes.

Sunday 3 May 2020

Dros

The moth trap was poor last night, but that's not the root of this post title.

As it was warming up a bit yesterday, and the sun looked like it might stay out for a while, I deployed a lure in the garden .... this one ....


I'd been studiously avoiding eating this last banana on the premise that it was starting to look a bit overripe, but with the ulterior motive that at any point soon it could become attractive to diptera and possibly other insects. I stuck it out on my moth trapping slab using a large flora lid as a tray. But after couple of hours it was still bare, and then I went out for my walk.

When I got back it had at least attracted something ....

A load of Drosophilidae (I presume, otherwise this blog title was also dross)

By the early, the banana remained intact and relatively ignored. At some point before dusk though something had tried to lift and carry it. And failed. The skin was completely gone, but there were lumps of banana strewn over a line in the garden. Magpie? Squirrel? Who knows, but either way I imagine they were a bit pissed when their effort resulted in soggy lumps of potassium dropping away as they scarpered. I collected up the remnants and re-deployed, but today has been overcast with very little activity.

Other unidentified diptera in the garden yesterday included ....

One of the Chloropidae, most likely Thaumatomyia notata

Think this one is a West Ham fan with that bubble blowing

Quite funky looking. For a fly.

Also this one ...

I'm sure this is Empis trigramma

And whilst I'm posting flies, I may aswell include this one from the walk ..

Psila sp. - I have one pinned to check again, but probably Psila fimetaria


3 comments:

Gibster said...

I think your Empis is more likely to be something like trigramma. It definitely isn't tessellata. Remember, time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.

Skev said...

Thanks, yes it is trigramma as I wrote down yesterday. I've had a brain fart whilst rushing to post before sorting the roast. Will update post when next logged onto PC.

Skev said...

Managed to do it on my phone. I think!