New Forest specials

 Today the weather was just looking good enough to try the long drive back to the New Forest. Again, due to traffic conditions on the motorways I had to go cross country but this trip still took an hour less than last week's attempt.


On arrival at the car park I met Paul and Mark who were both old hands from the Green Forest Hoverfly survey. Both, fortunately were way ahead of me in recognising Hoverflies too which was a great help.


The plan was to check a number of Beech stumps in the hope of seeing one or more Green Forest Hoverflies (Caliprobola speciosa) and hopefully something else too.



Beech stump

After 30 minutes or so one of the stumps had a great hoverfly perched briefly. This was The Thick-thighed Forest Fly (Brachypalpus laphriformis). Unfortunately it was so brief a visit that I only managed this long range photo



Thick-thighed Forest Fly

Another 30 mins or so passed where the best hoverfly seen was a Dimorphic Bumblefly ( Criorhina (now Matsumyia in some books) berberina. This stuck to flying through dense vegetation appearing just once for 10 secs where a diagnostic photo could be snatched



Dimorphic Bumblefly


Then at last Mark suddenly called us over to his stump where he had just found a Green Forest Hoverfly (GFH from now on ). 



Green Forest Hoverfly

My photos are a little distant but I was unbelievably pleased to see one so didn't want to risk any disturbance.

We watched this male for quite a while before Mark set off for another part of the Forest and Paul and I continued in the opriginal area. By lunchtime we had only found a Yellow-barred Pond Fly nectaring on one of the very few flowers open , wood spurge in this case.


Sericomyia silentis

I had expressed a strong hope that we might bump into a Microdon Hoverfly and Paul suggested that the best chance, though still very slim, was to check the top of every fallen trunk in the sun. Afetr lunch this paid off when I saw one fly in and perch for a few seconds. It then flew a foot or so giving a different angle for a photograph. These two viewpoints made it possible to identify as a  Heath Ant Fly  (  Microdon analis ).  

This group are notoriously hard to tell apart with some only identifiable as pupae. To make this harder the armoured larvae live deep inside ant nests !


Heath Ant Fly above and below

 


I also like this image with the shadow more obvious than the fly as it took off



After this we started to head back towards the cars but decided to check out a few more stumps on the way. At one of these we hit the Jackpot with two GFH appearing over a period of 20 mins or so. These were both quite approachable individuals enabling me to make the most of my macro lens and the new diffuser I had splashed out £6 on at the weekend. I'll finish with a selection of photos from here of female and then male Green Forest hoverflies.













Now that's what I call success.

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