Hoverfly Sightings W/C 17th November 2025

The Search for Hoverflies

As the days get shorter, colder and wetter, it’s getting more difficult to find any hoverflies so did I succeed?

22nd November

British Naturalists’ Association (BNA) field meeting at Broomhill flash.

No leader: C.Artindale gave a brief and interesting overview of the history of the site.

There were reports from bumping into Barnsley Birder R. Marshall of a female Goldeneye on the flash but unfortunately the 10 members of the group could not find it. A male Goldeneye was there on a U3a meeting on the 10th of November showing itself very nicely. We did however see and identify 25 species of birds including Pochard, Wigeon and Teal which are only often seen in the Autumn & Winter months. The group after an hour decided to walk to the Wombwell Ings, just on the other side of this pool. It was hoped we might see the Kingfisher, Stonechat or Ruff, seen by the U3a on the 10th, but unfortunately they also remained elusive. A nice flock of Linnet were around and plenty of geese and gulls. En-route to the pub to end the session, there was a solitary Redwing in a Hawthorn bush, wondering where his pals were, hope they weren’t too far away.  No hoverflies seen…..

Early that morning before setting off I noticed a cat in the communal car park had flushed out a rather large bird. I saw it land further down the way but could not get a great view has it hunkered down in the leaf litter. Unfortunately, the cat had seen where it landed and stalked it until flushed it again. I am 95% sure it was a woodcock as it flew off, no doubt it had just dropped in on its migration route, but no rest did it find.

So please if you have cats, please be mindful of the impact to the birds. Also leave your leaves you never know what might be in them.

This is what you often find in leaf litter and why birds are amongst it. This photograph above was a hoverfly larva found 5th November 2017, so  must do some more leaf litter surveying soon. 

21st November

Across the UK many towns and cities are having Bright Night Festivals. I love to go visit the one local to me as they often feature many installations dedicated to the natural world. The theme this year was Grow – exploring the natural world and collective growth of our vibrant communities. Here are some of pictures from the event.

19th November

Had an opportunity to help empty a pond at RSPB Old Moor Nature reserve. This pond was showing its age and needed to be emptied, for a new pond that will last the next 20 years to be built. The aim of this session was to save as much pondlife as we could. One particular interest of a local expert on Dragonflies was to save any nymphs of the Hairy Dragonfly (Brachytron pratense). This had been a 2-week project the 1st session I hadn’t been able to help with, but they did find some nymphs which they relocated elsewhere on the site. I was also on the lookout for any hoverfly nymphs but realised pretty earlier that it might have been a little deep for members of the Common and Tapered Dronefly (Eristalis sp) or Batman (Myathropa florea). Anyways as suspected no hoverfly larva found here, but I really enjoyed helping. Here are some pictures of what I did find Spiders, Snails and Sticklebacks…

Hoverflies Logged:

Well, I didn’t actually find a hovering hoverfly but there was a critter on display at one of the Bright Night events at the Cooper gallery - could it possibly be a hoverfly I will let you decide…..