The insect of the day for me was my first Cheilosia illustrata, spotted on the flowers of the hogweed (the larval foodplant) along the track on the way in to Dene Park.
This is a furry bumble bee mimic with a wing cloud on the outer part of the wing. There is a whitish band on the front half of abdomen, followed by a black band and then a reddish tail. The inner cross vein R-M meets the discal cell before its middle. There was no loop in the R4/5 wing vein. In side view there was a clear knob on the light dusted face (you can believe the face is black beneath).
There were a lot of Eristalis around, mainly Eristalis tenax I think. It was interesting to see the golden hairs around the abdomen
You can also see this golden fuzz from the front and there are also the long golden bristles around the rear of the scutellum, and the apparent reddish-gold on the legs visible from some angles in close-up, as opposed to the overall completely blackish colour normally seen by the naked eye.
In the excellent piece of grassland by the car park, there was a nice female Meliscaeva cinctella (I think) on the hawkbit, and I've now seen a couple of these in the past few days. Note the lack of a black stripe down to the antennae on the frons, and its small size.
This is a furry bumble bee mimic with a wing cloud on the outer part of the wing. There is a whitish band on the front half of abdomen, followed by a black band and then a reddish tail. The inner cross vein R-M meets the discal cell before its middle. There was no loop in the R4/5 wing vein. In side view there was a clear knob on the light dusted face (you can believe the face is black beneath).
There were a lot of Eristalis around, mainly Eristalis tenax I think. It was interesting to see the golden hairs around the abdomen
You can also see this golden fuzz from the front and there are also the long golden bristles around the rear of the scutellum, and the apparent reddish-gold on the legs visible from some angles in close-up, as opposed to the overall completely blackish colour normally seen by the naked eye.
In the excellent piece of grassland by the car park, there was a nice female Meliscaeva cinctella (I think) on the hawkbit, and I've now seen a couple of these in the past few days. Note the lack of a black stripe down to the antennae on the frons, and its small size.
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