Natural Suffolk

 I picked up my veg box at the Oak Tree Community farm , and looked for insects first.   This is a Common Flower Fly  Syrphus ribesii  This is a hoverfly, according to observation.org which was 100% certain of ID, so I'll take that. Apparently males have the eyes meet at the top of the head, according to the wikipedia entry In common with many other species of hoverfly, males have the eyes meeting on the top of the head, whilst females have their eyes widely separated.     Something grisly going on here, the same individual has moved on to a hawthorn leaf Honey bee Apis mellifera carrying pollen sacs Yellow Dung Fly - Scathophaga stercoraria Finally, a Yellow Dung Fly ,according to Observation with high certainty.  While on site I decided to educate myself about the weeds I saw Cypress Spurge Euphorbia cyparissias  The RHS list this under plants for pollinators  along with some charming common names  Bonaparte's crown Faitour's gra...

I came across a swarm of insects on a visit to the Oak Tree Community farm  to look for wildlife. I assumed the menacing dangling thing was either an ovipositor or possibly a sting. These were the same sort of thing that had been bugging me walking along north wall of Minsmere a week ago, but I didn't come away with any bites. They followed me around in  a small cloud along that stretch of the reserve.  The appendages were neither sting nor ovipositor, simply long back legs, St Mark's flies otherwise known as Hawthorn flies are a little bit early this year for St Mark's Day 25th April. St Mark's Fly Bibio marci   Mating - the larger female with smoky wings is above Phil Gates has some fascinating detail of the large eyes on his cabinet of curiosities blog , which differ between males and females, the males have a visual system adapted to both hover and locate females, whereas the females have a simpler visual system without the fine hairs between the...