Time Flies

TIME - It's been a while since my last posting, almost 6 months!, so I guess it's about TIME for another one?
This year, with regards to 'nature watching'  I've had a bit of a change in direction..not so many birding outings  but more outings focused on BUGS, or insects as the more serious like to say!
It's such a large and diverse subject and I've become totally hooked, and it's all TIME consuming...I can go out for a few hours 'bugging' and easily come home with 300+ images on the memory card, it then takes a few days (TIME) to sort through them and ID what I've happily snapped away at! 
Subjects can range from the larger, more obvious, Damsel/Dragon Flies down to the small and barely noticeable leaf and plant hoppers. I find them all fascinating and beautiful.

Anyway, that's enough waffle...here's a few FLIES 

 Bluebottle  Calliphora vicina    Very familiar!

Thick-Headed Fly  Sicus ferrugineus   a parasitoid of bumblebees.

Broad Centurion  Chloroyia formosa   One of the many Soldierflies which are named after their brightly coloured 'uniforms', this is a green and bronze male, the female is green and blue.

A Picture-Winged Fly  Tephritis neesii   (about 4mm long)  Belonging to a group of flies that wave their strikingly patterned wings around, semaphore style, to claim territory or attract a mate.

 A Slender-footed Robberfly  Leptarthrus brevirostris   An insect eating fly, this one is enjoying a Mirid Bug for it's lunch.

Greenbottle  Lucilia sericata   Another familiar fly!

 A Fever Fly  Dilophus febrilis   One of the St. Mark's Flies seen in early spring often flying in large swarms, and typically with their legs dangling. This is a female, the male has large bulbous eyes.

Lesser Housefly  Fannia lustrator   Another regular visitor to 'our world'   (note the damaged eye)


 These last two are from the family of Tachinidae flies (Parasitic Flies) the larvae of these flies are parasitoids of other insects especially the caterpillars of butterflies and moths.

 Eriothrix rufomaculata 

 Tachina fera


Hopefully my next post won't be so long in coming but, you know what they say....TIME FLIES...[;o)