Syrphin

Spent some time in the garden early this morning, too early for any real activity - just enjoying the relative peace, birdsong, morning warmth and plenty of coffee. I wasn't enjoying the largely empty moth trap. One of the Blackcaps showed itself a little better, and I saw a female in the garden which was nice.

I could hear a Skylark singing, and a very distant snatch of Lesser Whitethroat - I think the days of this being annual on the embankment are now over as it is probably too densely shrubbed over now. It sounded not far away, just beyond the end of the embankment where it turns to hedgerow along the field edges.

Early this afternoon, with left foot big toe much more flexible and much less painful than of late, I headed of for my first walk in over two weeks. I headed back to the disused railway line and I've got a few bits from the outing to share over future posts. Today though, I'll focus on the main activity in the garden yesterday with a couple of bits from today thrown in as they fit the topic - Syrphinae.

Having got completely fed up with the Eristalis pertinax disturbing anything, but having also noted a few smaller hoverflies in the garden, I decided it was time to swish the net and try to get them sorted. I'm not used to fondling hoverflies and clearly need more practice as getting hold of them was certainly not a refined and honed process - however all were released unharmed. Getting one-handed shots whilst hand-rangling diptera is also an art that I need to perfect. Turned out they're all female, I guess the males were too busy to be fanny about flying in sunshine.

First up, one that really should be exciting but again (having had one last year) a sense-check on the UK Hoverflies facebook group says sp. only. These clearly just need lumping ....

Female Pipiza sp.

Legs not yellow enough for P. luteitarsis, so probably P. noctiluca sl, but might not be ...

Female Eupeodes sp.

Another bugger, as markings not quite right for either E. luniger or E. corollae

 The rest were more straightforward ....

Female Melanostoma scalare

 Female Platycheirus albimanus

Grey spots on abdomen, extensively yellow legs

Female Rhingia campestris

Black edging to tergites

The following are all from the walk today ... same method, same clumsy handling ...

Female Leucozona lucorum

 

Female Helophilus pendulus

Female Syrphus ribesii

Note the hind femur is largely yellow except the base

White Letter Day

It's not often that I'm tempted out to try and see a new butterfly; don't know why but despite being a keen moth recorder for 18+ years now, butterflies have never really got me that bothered. But I picked up news of one that I've not seen before just up the road at Huncote Embankment, and so I nipped over late this afternoon. Immediately found the spot and one of the butterflies, though some crappy record shots were about all I could manage ......

White-letter Hairstreak

To outline just how unbothered I am about butterflies, that's only my 44th British species.

I do like a good Marbled White though, and there were three or four knocking about on the plateau but catching up with one as they rested for seconds was harder work than it was probably worth!

Marbled White

Hoverflies were notable today, with Scaeva pyrastri in the garden and Volucella pellucens at the Embankment. Both of those evaded the camera, but I got these ....

Volucella zonaria - an absolute beast of a hoverfly

Episyrphus balteatus - several in the garden today

 Syrphus ribesii s.l. - female with predomninantly yellow hid femur

Syrphus vitripennis s.l. - female with part black hind femur

 Not a hover - Green Shieldbug nymph

The garden moths traps were back out last night, and there was a fairly decent catch. I'll post a few moth photos another day apart from this one - still enjoy seeing this in the garden, and still can't believe it was extinct as a British species just over a decade ago!

Small Ranunculus

Life in the garden, 25/07/2009

I spent an ultimately frustrating hour or so in the garden on Saturday morning tyring to get anything like half-decent shots of the various hoverflies that have built up in numbers over the last couple of weeks. Main problems were the speed of the subjects versus the shutter lag on the Coolpix, and the wildly changeable lighting with bright sun changing to dull cloudy light every few minutes. I eventually resorted to netting and potting a few individuals - even that was a game as they are much harder to net than moths. Despite having them potted, the ID of most of them was still beyond me with nothing more than a few internet images to go by. Eristalis tenax Episyrphus balteatus Scaeva pyrastri? Syrphus ribesii? Maybe I'll should look up a decent reference book for hoverflies - any recommendations?