Thu 11/07/2019

Early this morning, the conservatory was full of hover flies as usual, tapping against the ceiling and generally causing a commotion. One of them seemed an odd shape though, so I tracked down my camera and took a couple of shots of it. Here is it; it’s the same size and colouring as the general run of hover flies, but is quite clearly something different – o robber fly, I would say.

So I sent a tweet out to the universe to see if anybody could I d it for me. It turns out to be a conopid or ‘thick headed’ fly, which seems a bit harsh. They are not classified as robber flies, although their sturdy legs allow them to capture other flies in flight and deposit their eggs. This one goes by the picturesque name of the ‘four-banded bee grabber’, with the Latin name Conops quadrifasciatus. Thanks to Biodiversity Ireland and Ryan Mitchell for those two identifications respectively! Ray Cannon’s Nature Notes has a page on this species here.

They usually wallop all the plants at once starting from the bottom up, but this time they seem to have started by the back gate and are working their way outwards. Maybe it is something completely different doing it?

Anyway, this smallish moth appeared in the office where I work, buzzed around the room for a bit, then settled on the window blind, so I got this photo.