Sixty minutes of sun

 This really is turning into a relentlessly wet winter. It has rained here at some point on almost every single day since the start of January. However between the showers today we had an hour of sun with a temperature of 10 degrees C. This was enough to draw in 4 hoverflies to the sugar sprayed bush.


Two were Marmalade Hoverflies (Episyrphus balteatus) :- one that always sat with wings folded and one with wings open

  Marmalade Hoverfly 1


Marmalade Hoverfly 2

Next up was my first Tapered Drone Fly of 2026. This was a male, the first hoverfly I have seen this year that has not been female. You can tell because the eyes touch along much of the centre-line


Eristalis pertenax

Then a small, darkish hoverfly with yellow body markings put in an appearence. This was clearly a Thintail (Meiliscaeva sp) but I wanted to get a photo that clinched which one of the two common ones it was. Having got a photo in situ I caught it and added a bit of CO2 to the pot for a minute or so. Setting up my small lightbox I put the fly on a leaf and got a few shots off. Then it was released back into the garden where it took off at a rate of knots.

First the field photo:

Spotted Thintail (M. auricollis) 

Next two indoor pictures trying to show, firstly, the thorax pattern with sloping patches on T2 and after that the yellow base to the black spot above the antennae. I found these tricky with lots of reflections despite using basic diffusers. I believe they are good enough to confirm auricollis though and have submitted to iRecord as such.

above is not the best angle but it woke up too much after this so I didn't keep trying.

This final photo seems to show the feature just about well enough


One thing is for sure. It took longer than expected to photograph, identify, put into iRecord and write posts for Bluesky and here. There won't be time to do lots of recording or photography once the season gets going for proper. I may have to cut down on my plans a bit ! Still, it's meant to be a challenge and learning curve so I will just have to see if I get better quickly enough to cope.





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