Basic kit when in the field

 What you carry is, very much, up to your plans for what you see.


If you just want to enjoy seeing Hoverflies then you could just go without any kit at all. Or you could just take a notebook and jot down your sightings.

Personally I have two main aims that heavily influence how laden I have become. These are to enjoy taking decent quality photographs and to record Hoverflies for posterity with the records being available to scientists, naturalists or others in the future.


Having birded for nigh on 60 years I have a loft full of annual notebooks. Re-reading some early ones I realised that no-one else would be likely to plough through them so decided to change to mostly using electronic means. My choices are Ebird for birds and iRecord for insects. Mind you it was eye-opening to read a list where I walked to my nearby wood in the early 70s and simply recorded Turtle Dove as "abundant as usual". 

Having said that I still use a notebook for listing what insects I am seeing in the field and then put that into a spreadsheet once home.

I am fortunate enough to have a good second hand 105 mm Macro lens which fits via an adaptor to the basic mirrorless Canon R10 that I bought a couple of years ago. It did suffer from a few problems but Sigma have now repaired it for a reasonable charge and its raring to go this year. Even then I sometimes just take my phone and use the built in camera which are getting ever better.


While doing Butterfly transects I came across these Pentax Papillio 6.5x binoculars which are small and very lightweight and they have proved ideal for Hoverflies too.



As you can see they have been very well used and I gather there is now a waterproof version. Then again, Hoverflies don't fly much in rain.

Because I want to go beyond the c100 species of Hoverfly identifiable from photos I catch some in a net. I have a couple of different sizes including a folding one but they are essentially butterfly nets.


                                                Butterfly/insect net 14inch approx.

Once caught I then use a plastic tube and take any necessary ones home in a flexible cold box with an ice pack to keep them calm. Tubes come in various sizes with entomological suppliers such as Watkins and Doncaster or Anglian Lepidopterists having a range

https://www.watdon.co.uk/

https://www.angleps.com/

Recently I have gone away from glass tubes and found cheap plastic ones on the internet. Usually these are labelled specimen tubes. Picture below has a hand lens for size comparison.



                                         Plastic specimen tubes and a hand lens


Once the fly is safely in a tube, and calmed by being chilled for a short while, you can do some of the species pairs with a hand lens which is where a narrower tube comes in handy. Last year I often found that the fly sat on the far side of the tube and I couldn't focus with the lens ! So now I have lots of narrow ones.


Lenses come in various sizes. I have x10 plastic ones and a dual x10 plusx20 metal one. Incidentally:  I was taught that holding the lens to your eye and moving the insect towards you till focus was reached, was the correct way to use the instrument.



Many "proper Entomologists" have their lens on a cord round their neck for instant access...... just saying !


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