No Flies On Me

So, I was sitting on my heels, focused on the bell flower of a Comfrey, determined to get a good bee photo (bees love comfrey), when this beautiful Large Red Damselfly flew by.  Bee forgotten, I kept my eager eye on the flash of red, careful not to move suddenly and corkscrewing myself in the process.  She settled obligingly a few feet behind me, so I slowly unwound and took a shot.  

 I'm pretty confident that this is a young female.  The antehumeral stripes on the thorax are yellow in immatures (red in matures), and the abdomen differs between sexes; with the female having thicker black bands and a narrow yellow ring between each segment and a thin black line down the back.

Later in the day this hoverfly crossed my path, and I was delighted to get a shot for my hoverfly collection (of 2 now!)  

 Thanks to Geoff F at WAB who identified it as Xanthogramma  pedissequum.  According to Wikipedia, this is an 'uncommon European species', which has made me a bit smug, although looking at NBN Gateway's grid map, you can see it's not that uncommon in the south.

Marmalade Fly

One of our most common hoverflies; the Marmalade Fly.  I've just read that a male hoverfly has holoptic eyes.  This means that it's eyes meet at the top of it's head.  So, this one that I photographed in our garden, must be a male; and he can probably tell that I'm right behind him.

Nothing to worry about though, because despite looking a lot like a wasp, a hoverfly is completely harmless.  In fact, hoverflies are a good thing to have in your garden, as their larva like to eat aphids.