Hoverfly Central

It's an absolutely glorious day out there today - temperature in the mid-20s and not a cloud in the sky. I went down to my little pine tree to check on the cockroach nymphs and there wasn't one to be seen. They may have been spooked by the lawn mower man who came earlier. Either that or they didn't like my photo shoot yesterday.

On the subject of that, thank you so much everybody in helping me work out what they were, and in sending me to the spotlight page. I really appreciated that. Thanks especially to Mollyblobs, who did some pretty astounding detective work from the other side of the world. I get really frustrated with my lack of knowledge sometimes. I wish there was some sort of short course on bug identification - most of the education facilities at our museum are for school children, although I'm going to call in there in the not too distant future and just see what they have on offer.

This is a common hoverfly, Melangyna viridiceps. There are dozens of them out there, all moving at the rate of knots. Thankfully this one decided to have a little rest and be co-operative.

Rather spiffing in LARGE

You know, I was going to pull out that Diosma this winter, but didn't get round to it. Am I thankful now!!