A scorcher of a day and an opportunity to check out the wildlife in the back garden. The pond is certainly the centre piece with around 20+ Semaphore Flies, mainly males all trying to impress the females with their signalling.
In the rest of the garden a Blue-tailed Damselfly remained for an hour or so, and the flowering plants were a great attraction to a Large White butterfly and a Meadow Brown. There were other butterflies but sadly all fly-bys and these were a Painted Lady, Large Skipper and a Ringlet.
A lovely sight and one you don't often see nowadays was a juvenile Greenfinch tagging along with an adult bird.
Here are a few images from this afternoon.
A Blue-tailed Damselfly
Very flighty, but at least it gave me an opportunity to photograph it with different backgrounds.
A very well vegetated pond
A Semaphore fly checks out a Swollen-thighed beetle swimming in the deep end.
This fly was one of the species in the Name a Species 2012 competition and won the lovely English name of Semaphore fly. Clusters of males may dance around single females, which lack the white wing marks. When I lived in Swindon I use to find Semaphore Flies on my pond. More Here.
A pair of flies doing what flies do.
A Garden Bumblebee, Bombus hortorum.......
............the same Bumblebee with a small Sweat Bee passing by.
Another Sweat Bee sp. I believe.
This is a Narcissus Bulb Fly, Merodon equestris................
............which has a variation of colours........
.........to match several species of bee.
A Common Carder Bee
This is the Long Hoverfly, Sphaerophoria scripta
A Meadow Brown stops off briefly.