Flower beetle

Having stomped in and mardily announced to R that I hated every photograph I took today, on closer examination I found that I actually like these two quite a lot. So much, in fact, that I couldn't choose between them, so I'm posting both. They're artier than my normal stuff, but I think that's probably a good thing. 

The flower beetle gets top spot by a nose. This does exactly what it says on the tin: it's a beetle, and you find it on flowers. The Oedemeridae, the family of which it's a member, are also called a false blister beetles - presumably to differentiate them from true blister beetles, though under threat they can all secrete cantharidin (or some similar substance), which is a burn agent that can cause skin irritation in humans, and there's nothing illusory about a skin rash. 

The Obsidentify app won't commit to more than this particular female being either Oedemera lurida or Oedemera virescens, which is wise because they're very similar, but I don't think she's slender and slight enough to be O. lurida, so I'm plumping for the more robust O. virescens. British Beetles tells me that females of the two species "... may be distinguished by the form of the apical abdominal sternite (view from below and ignore the tergites), in lurida it is smoothly rounded apically while in the present species it is shallowly emarginate" - but on the whole I prefer to just take a guess, and I expect that she'd second my decision. Though - who knows? Maybe if I'd offered her a belly rub, she'd have rolled onto her back like a Golden Retriever, and given me the chance to take a look at her apical abdominal sternite.

My second photo is a male Platycheirus albimanus hoverfly. I'd been pursuing him around the geranium clump for a little while, with only moderate success, but got lucky when he paused briefly on the edge of a flower to groom himself, and offered me this nice portrait opportunity.

R: C3, D13.