Excellent close-up shot Malcolm.
There are about 250 species of Hover-Flies in the British Isles, many of them having very similar markings.
I would stick my neck out on this one and say it is the closest to being a
Syrphus Ribeshii. However, they are normally seen nearly everywhere in the British Isles between April and November, in-keeping with many other of its species too.
The earlier arrival must be attributed to a warming climate.
On Tuesday it was a lovely sunny, warm and dry day so we were doing some gardening, and saw two Bumble Bees flying about
. As you know, they're not due to be around until springtime, so the warmer weather seems to have caused them to emerge early.
Having said that though, we have been experiencing some very frosty overnight termperatures recently, down to minus 6 deg C a few days ago.
Our insect life seems to be getting a bit confused at the moment.
Laurie.
